Government Waste Book 2011 Has Been Published - Billions More Of Wasted Taxpayer Wealth

Just when you thought that the Federal government could not find any dumber ways to waste taxpayer money, Senator Tom Coburn publishes his annual "Wastebook" of government spending. As you go through the next few weeks paying your holiday bills, using money you probably worked hard to earn this past year just to celebrate a few holiday days with your family and friends, pause to recall that the Washington political class knows no shame when it comes to wasting those same earnings you worked so hard for.

The "Wastebook 2011" edition identified at least $6.5 billion of taxpayer waste which went towards what can only be described as idiotic expenditures. This equates out to about $60 for every American household, $60 that could have been spent on that family holiday meal, $60 that could have been spent on an extra gift for a loved one, $60 that could have been sent off to a worthy charity, etc. as opposed to the foolishness listed below.

And this edition of the "Wastebook" documents only a hundred or so wasteful government expenses. It is probably a pretty good assumption there are hundreds, if not thousands, more of the same types of Federal things and projects the government wastes money on. These additional projects would undoubtedly waste billions more of our tax payments.

Examples of wasteful spending highlighted in “Wastebook 2011” include:

• $75,000 to promote awareness about the role Michigan plays in producing Christmas trees and poinsettias.
• $15.3 million for one of the infamous Bridges to Nowhere in Alaska
• $113,227 for video game preservation center in New York.
• $550,000 for a documentary about how rock music contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Union.
• $48,700 for 2nd annual Hawaii Chocolate Festival, to promote Hawaii’s chocolate industry.
• $350,000 to support an International Art Exhibition in Venice, Italy.
• $10 million for a remake of “Sesame Street” for Pakistan.
• $35 million allocated for political party conventions in 2012.
• $765,828 to subsidize “pancakes for yuppies” in the nation’s capital. In this case, the Federal government gave a private company three quarters of a million dollars to open up an IHOP restaurant in an economically disadvantaged neighborhood in D.C. which ended up being built in a very economically well off spot in D.C.
• The Federal government sent an average of $120 million in retirement and disability payments to deceased former federal employees every year for at least the past five years.
• $764,825 to study how college students use mobile devices for social networking.
• In 2009, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) undertook a four year, $90 million effort to spur hiring and sales among Pakistani businesses. Two years later, the USAID Inspector General found no measurable impact for the $90 million of U.S. taxpayer money.

I strongly suggest that all American taxpayers read the detailed report, assuming that they have the fortitude to stomach the wasteful spending. The full report can be read at http://www.coburn.senate.gov/public//index.cfm?a=Files.Serve&File_id=b69a6ebd-7ebe-41b7-bb03-c25a5e194365

But this should not surprise us. Last week we showed how the Federal government loses more than half a TRILLION dollars a year in taxpayer wealth through fraud, waste, and mismanagement of the Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, Unemployment Benefits, IRS and other programs.

We reported how just one rich family in the Seattle area bilked the American taxpayer for over $100,000 by falsifying government application forms even though the family lived in a multi million dollar home, drove an expensive car, and the father had a successful chiropractic business.

The website that supports the sale of our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government," (http://www.loathemygovernment.com/) has a website page that allows the site visitor to vote on whether four dozen or so past Federal government expenditures were worthwhile use of taxpayer money. Over the past two years, the majority of those wasteful projects have received 100% negative ratings, i.e. every site visitor who voted said these Federal programs were not worth the expense.

Of the remaining expenditures, all but one had negative ratings of at least 90%, i.e. more than nine out of ten of those who voted said the programs were not worthwhile. Only one Federal project had less than 90% negative ratings, it had an 87% negative rating.

That is why our three posts from last week, "Why Raising Taxes On Any American, Rich Or Poor, Is Still A Stupid Idea," are so important. As Coburn's report shows, no American of any economic status should pay a dime more in taxes until the political class stops wasting our money on failed programs in Pakistan, stupid academic studies to find out about useless social networking habits, etc.

We face some serious issues in this country including escalating health care costs, lack of a national energy strategy and program, failing public schools, a lost war on drugs, excessively high taxation, fraud, mismanagement, and waste in government programs, and high unemployment. All of the nation's available resources should be focused only on these large, global problems.

Once these problems are solved, we can go back and find out of rock music contributed to the fall of the Soviet Empire. Until then, no new taxes, no new wasteful spending.


Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at www.loathemygovernment.com. It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.



Please visit the following sites for freedom:



http://www.cato.org/
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com/
http://www.flipcongress2010.com/
http://www.reason.com/
http://www.repealamendment/