On Thursday, August 29, 2019, U.S. Senator Rand Paul (R-KY), chairman of the Federal Spending Oversight and Emergency Management (FSO) Subcommittee for the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee (HSGAC), continued his efforts to reform the big-spending status quo with the release of a Summer 2019 edition of "The Waste Report." In his report, Paul outlines where $50,190,108,562.35 has been wasted.
-Attempted to increase trust between Tunisian political parties and citizens (State) $2,000,000
- Converted an abandoned mental hospital into DHS HQ (GSA and DHS) $2,120,040,355.35
-Supported “Green Growth” in Peru (USAID) $10,000,000
- Fixed vehicles New York City falsely claimed Superstorm Sandy damaged (FEMA) $5,303,624
-Increased capacity of the Pakistani film industry (State) $100,000
-Paid out billions from Medicare in improper payments (CMS) $48,000,000,000
-Taught English and IT skills at Madrassas (State) $150,000
-Studied frog mating calls in Panama (NSF) $466,991
-Paid for Google Scholar searches in Hawaii (NSF, NOAA, USFS, DOI, NASA) $51,722,107
-Paid for property confiscated in Afghanistan by the ANDSF (USACE) $325,485
Details of these expenditures can be found here: After digging, we have discovered other ridiculous expenditures of American's tax dollars many projects do nothing to enhance America.
According to Americans for Prosperity, $85 Million dollars were spent in Kabul Afghanistan building a hotel. A hotel that is unfinished. It was discovered by the Government Accountability office that Overseas Private Investment Corporation who was supposed to oversee the project inspects less than 10% of the projects it funds.
$1.6 Billion Dollars of American tax-payer dollars were to purchase government vehicles. Purchasing 64,500 cars, trucks, and vans at the cost of roughly $25,000 each. The Government Accountability Office could not even determine if these purchased cars were in use, or whether they were needed.
The government currently spends $80 billion yearly on technology, however, in 2015, the federal government spent $55 billion to preserve old outdated technology.
A gross example of government funding a project is the $1.04 Billion dollars to renovate a trolly in San Diego California. The renovations would increase the reach of the trolly by approximately 10 miles, making it a $10 million dollar per mile trolly expansion. The best part is trolly only services 27,000 annually.
Another gross misuse of government funds was a project that addicted zebrafish to nicotine. This project cost American taxpayers a whopping $700,000.
A self-cleaning potty in the metro to the tune of $500,000 at the Huntington metro station. However, the OIG can not determine exactly how much the toilet cost due to lost invoices for 2007, 2012, 2013, and 2014. The project has been referred to as "Operation Golden Potty."
Can drinking alcohol get you injured? The National Institute of Health wanted to know. So they were awarded a grant in the amount of $4,658,865 over several years to study the connection between drinking alcohol, hurting yourself or somebody else, and winding up in the ER.
Thirty-four Million dollars was spent buying Afghan student textbooks. However many of these textbooks are still in a warehouse and not being used.
And the coup de gras of government spending goes to USAID, who spent $22,000,000 to bring the quality of Serbian cheese to the international market. As Rand Paul writes, "So American dairy farmers dealing with the realities of this situation might be cheesed off to learn their government worked to strengthen competition and the European cheese market — using their own tax dollars to boot!"
These are just a few examples of how the government is spending American taxpayer's hard-earned dollars. There are hundreds of examples of out of control spending. Do you think it is time to reel in these big spenders? Let us know what you think.