The U.S. National Debt has reached the stunning figure of $34 trillion, despite Washington taking in record revenues.
Unlike other periods of great spending, there is very little to show for all profligacy. The spending of the 1940’s resulted in victory during World War Two. The 1950’s saw the construction of the national highway system. In the 1980’s, Reagan’s defense buildup was a key factor in ending the Cold War.
In the 21st Century, however, the nation’s infrastructure continues to crumble, our electrical infrastructure remains unprotected, social security funds are dwindling, our nuclear arsenal is increasingly obsolete, and our Navy is now second in size to China.
Where has all the money gone? Waste may be a key factor.
U.S. Senator Rand Paul (R-KY), Ranking Member of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, has released his 2023 “Festivus” Report, https://www.paul.senate.gov/dr-rand-paul-releases-2023-festivus-report-on-government-waste/ detailing, totaling ~$900,000,000,000 in government waste.
Here are the key points of Senator Paul’s report:
The U.S. government will add over $5 billion of debt every single day for the next ten years. We borrow over $200 million every hour, we borrow $3 million every minute, and we borrow $60,000 every second.
In Fiscal Year 2023, the U.S. Department of the Treasury spent $659 billion just to pay the interest on the national debt.
Because we don’t have the funds to pay that, we have to borrow it — a large portion from China. We borrow from China to pay the interest on funds we couldn’t afford to spend in the first place.
Some of the more extreme examples Senator Paul outlines include:
An NIH grant to study Russian cats walking on a treadmill, Barbies used as proof of ID for receiving COVID Paycheck Protection Program funds, $6 million to promote tourism in Egypt, and $200 million to ‘struggling artists’ like Post Malone, Chris Brown, and Lil Wayne.
What’s known to South Carolina locals as “Monkey Island” is Dr. Fauci’s ~3,000-monkey colony, raised on a state-owned island. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) signed a $33.2 million contract with a local business to house, feed, and care for these monkeys before they’re shipped to research labs around the country.
The federal government established the colony in the late 1970s, though the multi-million dollar contract to care for the monkeys changed hands a few times. NIH also paid millions to a large pharmaceutical company to maintain Dr. Fauci’s Monkey Island.
Care to float in a hot-air balloon around Egyptian ruins or travel down the Nile on a Royal Cleopatra Nile cruise? Maybe touring the Temple of Khnum, or seeing an 1897 oil press is more your style? If so, Esna, Egypt, might be the perfect spot for your next vacation. U.S. taxpayers should not be the ones funding a tourism boosting program in Esna, Egypt.
Yet the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) approved spending $6 million to do just that: boost tourism in Egypt, which it promotes as a “value investment in sustainable integrated tourism.” USAID’s multi-million-dollar VISIT-Esna initiative will run through September 2024. The U.S. has spent over $100 million on Egyptian tourism so far.
When you walk outside in the summer, you get hot. When Labrador retrievers are walked outside in the summer, they also get hot.
Getting hot while walking outside in the heat might be obvious to you, but the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) allocated “cutting edge” research funding to support a summer study that walked 16 dogs—of two different colors — and measured their rectal temperatures.
Researchers found the Labradors’ fur color did not affect their body temperatures after a hot summer’s walk. That’s it. That’s the taxpayer funded, cutting-edge study.
The Agricultural Research Service at the USDA, which funded the study at Southern Illinois University, gets $1.7 billion a year from Congress, but it’s unknown how much the hot dog study cost the taxpayer.
The Report continues tomorrow
Illustration: Pixabay