ANDREW STILES
● A $113,000 grant for video-game preservation awarded to the International Center for the History of Electronic Games, an organization that “collects, studies, and interprets video games . . . and the ways in which electronic games are changing how people play, learn, and connect with each other, including across boundaries of culture and geography.”
● $17.8 million in aid to China, a country that currently holds U.S. debt in excess of $1.1 trillion. The aid package included $2.5 million for social services and $4.4 million for “green” initiatives and environmental-improvement programs.
● $10 million awarded by the U.S. Agency for International Development to a Pakistani arts organization to create “130 episodes of an indigenously produced Sesame Street.” The project, which will included characters such as Haseen O Jameel, “a conceited well-dwelling crocodile,” and Baily, “a hard-working donkey who longs to be a pop star,” is expected to receive $20 million over the next four years.
● A $147,000 grant to the American Museum of Magic in Marshall, Mich. The museum, which purports to “celebrate magicians and their magic,” intends to use the funds to “better understand its various audiences and their potential interest in the history of magic entertainment.”
● $49,000 awarded to the Hawaii Department of Agriculture in support of the 2012 Hawaii Chocolate Festival, which aims to “highlight the culinary talents and products specifically linked to Hawaii’s chocolate industry.” Last year’s festival goers were treated to a wide selection of chocolate-infused comestibles, including popsicles, vodka, and beer.
● $1 billion in tax credits for energy-efficient home improvements awarded to individuals who, according to a survey by the Treasury’s secretary general for tax administration, “had no record of owning a home.” Recipients included hundreds of prisoners, and children as young as three.
● A $176,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health awarded to the University of Kentucky to study the effects of cocaine on the sex drive of Japanese quail. The study, which began in 2010 and is scheduled to run through 2015, has already received more than $350,000 in federal funding.
● $96,000 in federal stimulus funding to purchase iPad 2 tablets for students in a Maine school district. When asked via an online survey whether the investment was worthwhile, 96 percent of local parents said no.
● $50,000 to the Oregon Cheese Guild, which plans to operate a statewide “Cheese Trail” connecting local farms and restaurants. The funds will go towards the production of 24 “video vignettes” featuring local farmers and experts expounding on the history of cheese.
● $1.4 million for an “entrepreneurship initiative” in the small Caribbean nation of Barbados. The USAID grant will help a local business school develop a curriculum focusing on “social” and “cultural” entrepreneurship, as well as “alternative energy initiatives.”
● $60,000 for a “tree census” in Henderson, Nev., including “tree location mapping, species identification,” and “tree health evaluation.”
● A $55,000 NIH grant to Virginia Commonwealth University to study the “associations between sociodemographic variables and water pipe tobacco smoking” among Jordanian students.
● $51,000 spent by the Air Force Academy on the construction and dedication of “a small Stonehenge-like circle of boulders with [a] propane fire pit.” The site was intended as an outdoor worship center for cadets who follow “Earth-based” religions, such as “Wiccans, druids and pagans.” Out of 4,300 students, just three self-identified as such.
● A $74,000 federal grant awarded to a Treehouse Museum in Ogden, Utah, to help teach teenagers the art of puppetry (Joe Therrien, your dream has arrived!). It is the sixth grant of its kind — issued by the Institute of Museum and Library Services — that the museum has received. The project aims to help “participants develop leadership and communications skills as they learn techniques in storytelling in puppetry.”
● $593,000 to the Yerkes National Primate Research Center to study the neurological origins of feces-throwing behavior in chimpanzees. A research paper funded by this grant recently observed: “Some of the chimpanzees will pile feces or wet chow in their cage and wait for visitors to pass by before throwing this at them.”
● A $131,000 National Science Foundation grant to fund the study of how preschoolers can learn language skills by interacting with robots. Dragon robots, to be precise. The NSF has allocated nearly $1 million for the project over the next four years.
● $50,000 to the Western Folklife Center, which hosts the annual National Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Elko, Nev., where “cowboys and cowgirls, poets and musicians, artisans and scholars, rural people and city folks” come together to recite poesy on the prairie. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) famously lamented on the Senate floor that a “mean-spirited” House appropriations bill would have eliminated this funding. The center received the grant for a display that will include “contemporary handmade horse gear and other crafts to emphasize creativity, ingenuity, and a poetic approach to life and work in the rural ranching West.”
Senator Coburn has done American taxpayers a great service by highlighting these and other examples of wasteful government spending. If only Congress (namely Democrats) would take the glaringly obvious next step and move to eliminate such waste. Of course, $6.5 billion is a mere drop in the bucket when it comes to the federal budget. However, as I noted earlier this month, Senate Democrats have decided that they simply can’t, or won’t, cut spending by even that minuscule amount, out of a bloated budget so desperately in need of reform.
Why? As President Obama outlined in his speech in Osawatomie, Kan., earlier this month, Democrats believe the only way to “structurally close” the federal deficit is to not cut spending. “I’ve already signed nearly $1 trillion of spending cuts into law,” he boasted (which is true, though the cuts faced widespread Democratic opposition and for the most part aren’t scheduled to go into effect until years from now).
No, the only way to really get our $15 trillion debt problem under control, Obama said, is to “decide what our priorities are.” Which involves “making the investments we need” and raising taxes to pay for it.
This is clearly how Democrats would like to frame the 2012 election. However, the real choice confronting voters next year is actually much simpler. If they believe that a federal government that continues to spend billions of taxpayer dollars annually on magic museums, chocolate festivals, video games, cheese trails, dragon robots, cocaine for birds, and iPads for children, is “making the investments we need,” President Obama will be a shoo-in for reelection. If, on the other hand, they conclude that a government that spends this way is in no position to ask for more tax revenue, they’ll have an opportunity to change course. Indeed, that’s what the New Year is all about.
Many Americans are no doubt making resolutions to eliminate their bad habits in the New Year. The federal government would be well advised to do the same. President Obama and members of Congress could start by reviewing the jaw-dropping report put out by Sen. Tom Coburn (R., Okla.) outlining 100 examples — totaling more than $6.5 billion — of wasteful federal spending over the past year alone. What follows is a collection of some of the more outrageous examples.
● $120 million paid out in retirement and disability payments to deceased federal workers. According to the Inspector General of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, that’s in line with the annual average.● A $113,000 grant for video-game preservation awarded to the International Center for the History of Electronic Games, an organization that “collects, studies, and interprets video games . . . and the ways in which electronic games are changing how people play, learn, and connect with each other, including across boundaries of culture and geography.”
● $17.8 million in aid to China, a country that currently holds U.S. debt in excess of $1.1 trillion. The aid package included $2.5 million for social services and $4.4 million for “green” initiatives and environmental-improvement programs.
● $10 million awarded by the U.S. Agency for International Development to a Pakistani arts organization to create “130 episodes of an indigenously produced Sesame Street.” The project, which will included characters such as Haseen O Jameel, “a conceited well-dwelling crocodile,” and Baily, “a hard-working donkey who longs to be a pop star,” is expected to receive $20 million over the next four years.
● A $147,000 grant to the American Museum of Magic in Marshall, Mich. The museum, which purports to “celebrate magicians and their magic,” intends to use the funds to “better understand its various audiences and their potential interest in the history of magic entertainment.”
● $49,000 awarded to the Hawaii Department of Agriculture in support of the 2012 Hawaii Chocolate Festival, which aims to “highlight the culinary talents and products specifically linked to Hawaii’s chocolate industry.” Last year’s festival goers were treated to a wide selection of chocolate-infused comestibles, including popsicles, vodka, and beer.
● $1 billion in tax credits for energy-efficient home improvements awarded to individuals who, according to a survey by the Treasury’s secretary general for tax administration, “had no record of owning a home.” Recipients included hundreds of prisoners, and children as young as three.
● A $176,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health awarded to the University of Kentucky to study the effects of cocaine on the sex drive of Japanese quail. The study, which began in 2010 and is scheduled to run through 2015, has already received more than $350,000 in federal funding.
● $96,000 in federal stimulus funding to purchase iPad 2 tablets for students in a Maine school district. When asked via an online survey whether the investment was worthwhile, 96 percent of local parents said no.
● $50,000 to the Oregon Cheese Guild, which plans to operate a statewide “Cheese Trail” connecting local farms and restaurants. The funds will go towards the production of 24 “video vignettes” featuring local farmers and experts expounding on the history of cheese.
● $1.4 million for an “entrepreneurship initiative” in the small Caribbean nation of Barbados. The USAID grant will help a local business school develop a curriculum focusing on “social” and “cultural” entrepreneurship, as well as “alternative energy initiatives.”
● $60,000 for a “tree census” in Henderson, Nev., including “tree location mapping, species identification,” and “tree health evaluation.”
● A $55,000 NIH grant to Virginia Commonwealth University to study the “associations between sociodemographic variables and water pipe tobacco smoking” among Jordanian students.
● $51,000 spent by the Air Force Academy on the construction and dedication of “a small Stonehenge-like circle of boulders with [a] propane fire pit.” The site was intended as an outdoor worship center for cadets who follow “Earth-based” religions, such as “Wiccans, druids and pagans.” Out of 4,300 students, just three self-identified as such.
● A $74,000 federal grant awarded to a Treehouse Museum in Ogden, Utah, to help teach teenagers the art of puppetry (Joe Therrien, your dream has arrived!). It is the sixth grant of its kind — issued by the Institute of Museum and Library Services — that the museum has received. The project aims to help “participants develop leadership and communications skills as they learn techniques in storytelling in puppetry.”
● $593,000 to the Yerkes National Primate Research Center to study the neurological origins of feces-throwing behavior in chimpanzees. A research paper funded by this grant recently observed: “Some of the chimpanzees will pile feces or wet chow in their cage and wait for visitors to pass by before throwing this at them.”
● A $131,000 National Science Foundation grant to fund the study of how preschoolers can learn language skills by interacting with robots. Dragon robots, to be precise. The NSF has allocated nearly $1 million for the project over the next four years.
● $50,000 to the Western Folklife Center, which hosts the annual National Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Elko, Nev., where “cowboys and cowgirls, poets and musicians, artisans and scholars, rural people and city folks” come together to recite poesy on the prairie. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) famously lamented on the Senate floor that a “mean-spirited” House appropriations bill would have eliminated this funding. The center received the grant for a display that will include “contemporary handmade horse gear and other crafts to emphasize creativity, ingenuity, and a poetic approach to life and work in the rural ranching West.”
Senator Coburn has done American taxpayers a great service by highlighting these and other examples of wasteful government spending. If only Congress (namely Democrats) would take the glaringly obvious next step and move to eliminate such waste. Of course, $6.5 billion is a mere drop in the bucket when it comes to the federal budget. However, as I noted earlier this month, Senate Democrats have decided that they simply can’t, or won’t, cut spending by even that minuscule amount, out of a bloated budget so desperately in need of reform.
Why? As President Obama outlined in his speech in Osawatomie, Kan., earlier this month, Democrats believe the only way to “structurally close” the federal deficit is to not cut spending. “I’ve already signed nearly $1 trillion of spending cuts into law,” he boasted (which is true, though the cuts faced widespread Democratic opposition and for the most part aren’t scheduled to go into effect until years from now).
No, the only way to really get our $15 trillion debt problem under control, Obama said, is to “decide what our priorities are.” Which involves “making the investments we need” and raising taxes to pay for it.
This is clearly how Democrats would like to frame the 2012 election. However, the real choice confronting voters next year is actually much simpler. If they believe that a federal government that continues to spend billions of taxpayer dollars annually on magic museums, chocolate festivals, video games, cheese trails, dragon robots, cocaine for birds, and iPads for children, is “making the investments we need,” President Obama will be a shoo-in for reelection. If, on the other hand, they conclude that a government that spends this way is in no position to ask for more tax revenue, they’ll have an opportunity to change course. Indeed, that’s what the New Year is all about.
No comments:
Post a Comment