By The Numbers - Washington Wastes $59 Billion While Americans Suffer The Implications of the Pandemic

On a periodic basis we do some posts that fall under the theme of “by the numbers.” Rather than trust what the American politician tells us about reality, we like to examine the real numbers and the real reality in the world to understand what is actually going on. Relying on politicians, and their cohorts in the media, to tell us what is reality is always a sucker bet. They have their own agendas and goals, usually centering around their needs and self-enrichment. So we need to look at the reality of the numbers to determine what is really going on. 

Previous analyses of “by the numbers” can be accessed by entering the phrase in the search box above. This is where we look at the numbers to truly find out how good, not likely, or bad, most likely, the American political class is doing in managing our tax dollars, protecting our freedoms, and resolving major issues that affect all of us.

Today we are going to focus on the massive amount of wasteful spending that the Washington political class continues to commit. The main source of these wasteful numbers today comes from two sources:

1. Rand Paul’s annual publication of his wasteful government spending report which annually highlights the stupid, wasteful, and insane programs and projects that Washington wastes our tax dollars on.
2. The second source comes from the recent Congressional omnibus spending plans for 2021 that contains some very distressing spending on countries around the world.

Politicians should NEVER waste taxpayer money and wealth. But the wasteful spending is especially sensitive this year, given the suffering and challenges that the COVID pandemic has imposed on all Americans:

• Many Americans became unemployed or had their work hours reduced because of the pandemic and are suffering financially.
• Over 100,000 restaurants have gone out of business and many thousands more are in dire financial shape, causing millions of restaurant workers to lose their jobs or working hours.
• Airlines and other travel related industries are desperate for customers and revenue and their employees have already been fired, furloughed, or are in danger of losing their jobs.
• Food banks are struggling to keep up with the high food demand that the pandemic has caused.

Americans and American businesses are suffering and yet this is some of the nonsense the Washington political continues to waste money on, according to Rand Paul’s research, in the face of Americans’ suffering:

• Rand Paul’s annual report found that the government wasted at least $54,746,525,000 in taxpayer wealth in 2020.
• $25 million was spent to teach English to rural, unemployed Romanians.
• $1.5 million was spent to get Eastern Mediterranean kids to stop smoking hookah. 
• The National Institutes of Health is spending $1,039,544.00 over five years to try to help people get over their fears of going to the dentist.
• U.S. Agency for International Development is spending $10,000,000.00 and five years to attempt to improve Zimbabwe’s political process. 
• The Pentagon lost nearly $200 million in drone equipment just in Afghanistan alone. 
• The Pentagon spent $23 billion to develop a better version of the M-2 Bradley Fighting Vehicle, a project that failed.
• The Federal government spent $20 million for an airplane landing strip on Nantucket Island.
• Another $10 million was wasted on an order of COVID test tubes that never materialized..
• While thousands and thousands of theater employees lost their jobs because of covid lock downs, the Kennedy Center D.C. received $25 million for salaries. 
• Congress reimbursed some agencies for money they had spent on COVID in late 2019 and early 2020, before COVID hit, on efforts unrelated to COVID.
• $36 million was spent on studying why stress makes hair turn gray. 
• More than $1 million was spent studying whether people will eat ground-up bugs.
• More than $3 million was spent interviewing San Franciscans about their edible cannabis use.
• $8.62 billion was spent in Afghanistan on counter narcotics efforts, 
• More than $37 million was spent helping deal with truant Filipino youth
• More than $3 million was spent on sending Russians to American community colleges for a “gap year.”
• Among funds spent on the environment, energy, and scientific research, more than $1 million was spent walking lizards on a treadmill.
• Nearly $200,000 was spent studying how people cooperate while playing e-sport video games, and 
• More than $2 million was spent on developing a wearable headset to track eating behaviors.
• More than $715 million worth of military equipment, designated for Syrians fighting ISIS, was lost.
• More than $4 million was spent on spraying alcoholic rats with bobcat urine, 
• More than $10 million was spent on would-be coronavirus test tubes that turned up as used soda bottles. 
• Nearly $6 million was spent building three bicycle storage facilities at Washington, D.C. Metro stations.

Unbelievable. As Americans suffer, losing their jobs, their careers, their businesses, and facing food deficits, Washington politicians tried to get lizards in good cardio shape, helped out with Filipino kids, support Russian college students, etc.

And we know that they did not grow a heart or increase their compassion for suffering Americans since in their recent omnibus spending bills for 2021, they earmarked over $4.7 billion to go to far flung, non-strategic countries like Nepal, Cambodia, Burma, Egypt, and other places that I bet most people in Congress could not find on a map.

So between actual 2020 wasteful spending and billions being shipped overseas to billions being shipped out to far away countries in 2021, the Washington political class easily will waste $59 billion of taxpayer wealth. Think about what could be done for $59 billion:

• We have previously discussed the fact that, on average, a homeless American can be fed a decent meal for about $2.94 by food banks and charity groups across the country.
• That means that the wasted $59 billion could have provided three meals a day for every one of the 550,000 or so homeless Americans for about 33 years!
• We have previously discussed the fact that, on average, it takes $6,522 a year to treat an American with a drug addiction.
• That means that the wasted $59 billion could have provided drug addiction treatment to just over 9 million addicted Americans for a year.
• That $59 billion could have put up every homeless American in a $200 a night hotel room for a year and a half.

You get the idea, we could go on and on with the numbers. Just this amount of wasteful spending, and I am sure that there is plenty more, could bring so much relief to those in need in this country and yet, Washington politicians would rather waste our wealth on stupid pseudo-science and research projects, not hold anyone accountable for lost assets or misspent budgets, and send money around the world to help others but no our own.

The question that should be asked is why do they do it? It has always been my assumption that the reason they would rather help some kid in the Philippines rather than some American kid living in a car with their homeless parents is that there is something in it for them. Remember a few years ago when John Kerry’s daughter got a no bid contract worth millions of taxpayer dollars for an overseas project:

https://dailycaller.com/2016/10/18/exclusive-special-treatment-gave-john-kerrys-daughter-9-million-in-govt-contracts/

I would bet we would find similar actions underway in the wasteful spending above. Which member of Congress pushed to have funding for treadmill lizards and did they or their family in any way get any benefit? Who thought it was a good idea to send taxpayer money to Sudan and did they or their family benefit from that expenditure? 

It would sure be nice to have a budget process where every budget line item had a list of those in Congress who supported it. If someone actually had to fess up to supporting the need to find out why stress causes gray hair I would think and hope a lot of this budget nonsense would disappear.

This country is wealthy enough to feed its hungry, treat its addicted, and shelter its homeless. Unfortunately Washington would rather spend those resources elsewhere to the detriment and health of needy Americans. So very, very sad what their priorities are.

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:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=loce+my+country%2C+loathe+my+government&ref=nb_sb_noss

Please visit the following sites for freedom:


http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.bankruptingamerica.org
http://www.conventionofstates.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w