Will you be asking your US Representative or US Senators for their suport in eliminating any of these expenditures?
Ton Coburn’s 2013 Government Wasteful Spending revealed.
Tom Coburn’s 2013 Wastebook here.
Here are just the first 10 wasteful spending projects:
1. Paid to Do Nothing – (Government wide) At least $400 million
2. It’s a Bird. It’s a Plane. It’s Superman! – (National Guard) $10 million
3. Uncle Sam Looking for Romance on the Web – (NEH) $914,000
4. Obama Administration Studies American’s Attitudes Towards Filibuster as Senate Majority Leader Eliminates the Longstanding Senate Right to Debate – (MO) $251,525
5. Beachfront Boondoggle: Taxpayer’s on the Hook for Paradise Island Homes – (HI) $500 million
6. Pimping the Tax Code – (NV) $17.5 million
7. Mass Destruction of Weapons – (DoD) $7 billion
8. Let Me Google That for You: National Technical Information Service – (Department of Commerce) $50 million
9.Millions Spent Building, Promoting an Insurance Plan Few Want and a Website that
Doesn’t Work – (Department of Health and Human Services) At least $379 million
10. Cost of Unused Mega – Blimp Goes Up, Up and Away – (Army) $297 Million
Other examples:
Examples of wasteful spending highlighted in “Wastebook 2013” include:
The Popular Romance Project has received nearly $1 million from the National Endowment of the Humanities (NEH) since 2010 to “explore the fascinating, often contradictory origins and influences of popular romance as told in novels, films, comics, advice books, songs, and internet fan fiction, taking a global perspective—while looking back across time as far as the ancient Greeks.”
As the U.S. war effort in the Middle East winds to a close, the military has destroyed more than 170 million pounds worth of useable vehicles and other military equipment. The military has decided that it will simply destroy more than $7 billion worth of equipment rather than sell it or ship it back home.
With nearly half-a-billion dollars in government funding put behind promoting a product that relatively few people seem interested in purchasing off a website that doesn’t work, Obamacare is perhaps the biggest marketing flop since Coca-Cola introduced the world to “New Coke” in 1985.
If your wife is angry at you and you don’t want her to stay that way, you might avoid passing along the findings of this government study. Wives would find marriage more satisfying if they could calm down faster during arguments with their husbands, according to government-funded research.
While the families of the survivors and victims were fighting to receive military benefits, the Fort Hood shooter Major Nadal Hasan was cashing his paycheck. Since the shooting, Hasan has received over $278,000 in military benefits because the Military Code of Justice doesn’t allow a soldier to be suspended until they are found guilty.
One of NASA’s next research missions won’t be exploring an alien planet or distant galaxy. Instead, the space agency is spending $3 million to go to Washington, D.C. and study one of the greatest mysteries in the universe—how Congress works.
In January 2013, Congress passed a bill to provide $60.4 billion for the areas devastated by Hurricane Sandy. However, instead of rushing aid to the people who need it most, state-level officials in New York and New Jersey spent the money on tourism-related TV advertisements.
When officials at the Manchester-Boston Regional Airport in New Hampshire installed new solar panels, they did not anticipate one quarter of them would not be used 18 months later. In Spring 2012, the panels were placed on top of the airport’s parking garage, and 25 percent have remained there, covered with a tarp, rendering them useless. Problems with the new panels were noticed almost immediately by air traffic controllers who claimed that for 45 minutes each day, glare made it difficult to oversee the airport’s runways.
A grant from NSF went to a company in North Carolina to develop a math learning game based on the zombie apocalypse.
Since NASA is no longer conducting space flights, they have plenty of time and money to fund a YouTube TV show and cartoon series called “Green Ninja” in which a man dressed in a Green Ninja costume teaches children about global warming.\