We continue our summary of key points of government waste from Senator Rand Paul.
One would think employees of the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) would spend their time combatting cybersecurity breaches and doing other security-related tasks.
Think again. As part of a 5-year “diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA)” strategic plan, CISA employees gathered for a federally funded workshop, where attendees focused on “effective strategies to build and sustain psychological safety that allows individuals to show up to work as their authentic and best selves […].”
Ironically, the workshop coincided with CISA’s efforts to suppress protected speech on social media platforms during the COVID-19 pandemic. Even Senator Paul was censored at the behest of our government speech minders.
After having their brain stems snipped, Russian cats were forced to walk on a treadmill in Russian labs. This is all thanks to U.S. taxpayers footing the bill. Russian scientists, funded with your money, posted videos of their cat-walk studies, which showed shaved cats hooked up to electrodes and struggling to walk on a treadmill. These cat-walks were part of a $2.7 million National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant given to a researcher at the Georgia Institute of Technology in the U.S. The Institute then sub granted the funds to researchers in St. Petersburg, Russia — a fact first uncovered by White Coat Waste Project in 2021.
U.S. officials testified that another $38 million in COVID payments — an average of $83,000 each — went to people Uncle Sam knew were dead. The figures came from the special task force Congress authorized to track COVID payments from the federal government. Specifically, $10 million was paid to individuals who were already dead on the date someone applied for funding. The government doled out $1.3 million of your money to 30 individuals who were dead for at least a year, in what fraud inspectors deemed one of the “particularly egregious examples.” This was not the first time Uncle Sam tracked taxpayer funds to the mailboxes of the dead. By April 30, 2020, the U.S. Treasury’s Inspector General knew $1.4 billion (of $269 billion total) was sent out to more than one million Americans who filed taxes in previous years, and then died, yet still received checks intended as COVID stimulus payments.
Not all the funds were recovered, as dead people are notoriously bad about paying up.
We all know that the Department of Defense (DOD) makes purchases for military operations. One would imagine weapons, ammunition, and tanks might be among those purchased items, but according to USASpending.gov, they aren’t the kind of tanks you’re thinking of!
The DOD paid $8,395 for a “Lobster Tank” purchased from a restaurant equipment company in Springfield, Virginia. I understand military personnel need to eat, but does the DOD really need a Lobster Tank? I think we can all agree these aren’t the tanks Americans thought their tax dollars were funding.
“I know, let’s store your vehicle engine outside,” said no auto mechanic ever. But that’s just where the U.S. Army officials “improperly stored 80 gas turbine engines” valued at $89.16 million. Each of the $1.1 million engines were improperly stored for three years!
Apparently, the code to properly store the engines was missing upon their arrival, so, instead of putting the engines in a covered shed they were left outside. At a million dollars an engine, why couldn’t someone just call and ask for the code?
How much does something have to be worth for the U.S. Army to store it properly? Evidently more than $12.6 million.
This time, the Department of Defense (DOD) Inspector General (IG) found the U.S. Army “improperly stored 135 hydraulic transmissions (NIIN 14131885), valued at $12.60 million, outside.” Despite the requirement to be stored in a shed, over 1,000 officials told the IG they simply didn’t have room in the shed.
Apparently, the natural next step is to store them in leaky and improperly maintained long-life reusable containers (LLRCs). It was in the outside LLRCs, that inspectors found transmissions stored at excessive humidity levels and among standing water and oil.
The third and final example (until next year) of the Department of Defense (DOD) ruining expensive military equipment, revolves around military tanks and tank treads.
The DOD Inspector General (IG) cataloged “117,534 vehicular track shoes” valued at $68.29 million left outside in the open air. They were not covered or stored properly at all. The IG said over 1,000 military officials did not follow the military’s own guidance on storage.
The Report concludes tomorrow