Outgoing Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) released his latest, and last, Wastebook today, detailing $25 billion in wasteful government spending, from $387,000 on Swedish massage for rabbits to $90 million “promoting U.S. culture around the globe with nose flutists.”
If you don’t want to read the whole thing (though you should), the Coburn office produced a great video that highlights some of the most egregious examples.
Each example of wasteful spending listed in the Wastebook is more dismaying than the one before, especially in light of our out-of-control national debt and repeated attempts of some legislators to undo the modest spending caps imposed by the Budget Control Act of 2011. Of course, some of the very agencies which claim their budgets have been slashed, leaving them unable to perform their basic missions, are among the biggest wasters.
Recently, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director, Dr. Francis Collins, claimed that budget cuts were to blame for the lack of an Ebola vaccine, despite relatively stable appropriations for the NIH. Instead, according to the new Wastebook, the NIH has been spending funds on the aforementioned rabbit massages and a more than $300,000 study that wondered, “Do moms love dogs as much as their own children?”
The Department of Defense, which has been at the center of most arguments to bust the sequester, also has questionable spending priorities:
- $80 million to develop an “Iron Man” suit
- $414,00 for a free first-person-shooter online game
- $1 billion to destroy $16 billion in unneeded ammunition
- $468 million on 20 planes ultimately sold for scrap for only 6 cents a pound!
- $72,000 on “hundreds of magazines to Congress to promote green initiatives”
- $998 million on the troubled Ground-based Midcourse Defense system
- $9 million on overpriced helicopter parts
The U.S. Postal Service, already bleeding billions each year, is losing $77 million a year on a program in Alaska described as a “subsidized freight services that ships Coke, Mountain Dew, Gatorade, frozen honey wings, and Clorox wipes … .”
Equally offensive are the massive amounts of waste on behalf of entities who don’t need the taxpayer dollars, such as $1.4 million in bond guarantees for the Walt Disney World Polynesian Resort Makeover, $200,000 to the New York based Empire Brewing company to expand its business, $1.98 million for the sheep industry, $50,000 to help wineries sell beer and chile pepper-infused wine, and $18 million to upgrade the low-traffic Sun Valley ski resort that caters to the rich and famous.
As pressure mounts to increase spending and eliminate the budget caps, the 2014 Wastebook is an important reminder that before Congress asks taxpayers to cough up more money, legislators need to stop the billions in unnecessary spending. It’s clear from this new report that there’s room to cut across the federal government and no agency should be immune from increased scrutiny over how taxpayer funds are spent.
As Senator Coburn prepares to leave Washington, taxpayers hope that another champion will be willing to take on this important project.