Sen. Rand Paul’s Annual ‘Festivus’ Report: a Whopping $900,000,000,000 of Government Waste
‘No matter how much money the government has already wasted, politicians keep demanding even more’
By Katy Grimes, December 22, 2023 8:55 am
U.S. Sen. Rand Paul just released his annual “Festivus Report” of wasteful government spending. The 2023 listing does not disappoint – until you remember you are paying for this abuse of taxpayers’ funds by electing the congressional wastrels.
This year, Sen. Paul reports “a whopping ~$900,000,000,000 of waste – nearly double last year’s report – including 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.”
“No matter how much money the government has already wasted, politicians keep demanding even more.”
Festivus is a holiday celebrated on December 23rd, created on the Jerry Seinfeld Show by Frank Costanza, George Costanza’s father, as an alternative to Christmas. According to Seinfeld Fandom, “He came upon the idea after pummeling a man in the face in a toy-store dispute over a doll (for George). In his own words, ‘As I rained blows upon him, I realized, ‘There had to be another way!’”
Sen. Pauls’ Festivus report laments “What a year it’s been”:
“Twitter is now X, what we thought were UFOs were actually Chinese Spy Balloons, Barbie battled Oppenheimer at the box office, and a missing F-35 jet flew for over 60 miles without a pilot. It’s safe to say that some big changes have occurred since last year’s Festivus Report.”
Last Festivus, we lamented over the national debt reaching an astronomical $30 trillion. Shockingly, in one short year, the career politicians and bureaucrats in Washington have managed to approach $34 trillion in debt, without so much as a second thought.
Who’s to blame for our crushing level of debt? Everybody. This year, members of both parties in Congress voted to raise the debt ceiling, which empowered the government to borrow an unlimited amount of money until 2024. As Congress spends to reward its favored industries and pet projects, the American taxpayers are forced to pay the price through record high inflation and crippling interest rates.”
Here is Sen. Rand Paul’s 2023 list of annual grievances.
After Congress approved $800 billion in COVID Paycheck Protection Program fund, swindlers used Barbie doll faces as proof of identity to steal taxpayer dollars. The Small Business Administration’s AI system to verify proof of identity failed to catch the doll faces, and approved the applicants. As Sen. Paul said, “the stupidity of the program” was exposed.
Senator Rand Paul highlights wasteful taxpayer-funded animal tests uncovered by White Coat Waste Project.
Sen. Paul reports “the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) for—as WCW first exposed—shipped more than $770,000 in taxpayers’ money to the Kremlin-run Pavlov Institute of Physiology, where dozens of healthy cats had their brains damaged, electrodes implanted into their spines, and were forced to walk on treadmills before being killed.”
Paul highlights other horrid NIH experiments on animals, too gruesome to include here, but be sure to read just how vile Anthony Fauci’s NIH is – HERE – creating meth head monkeys, to the tune of $20-billion-plus, “for cruel and pointless animal experiments each year.”
Aside from the atrocious animal experiments taxpayer footed the bill for, Paul addresses the National Debt and the absurdity of our government:
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.
My 2022 Festivus Report noted the Department of the Treasury spent $475 billion on interest payments in fiscal year 2022. When the national debt jumped even higher this year, the interest payment went up $184 billion.
Apparently, robbing Peter to pay Paul is not a sound fiscal strategy.
Did you know that the United States pays for tourism in Egypt?
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.
Sen. Paul exposes the rot and hypocrisy in Homeland Security:
As part of a 5-year “diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA)” strategic plan, CISA employees gathered for a federally funded workshop, where attendees focused on “effective strategies to build and sustain psychological safety that allows individuals to show up to work as their authentic and best selves […].”
Ironically, the workshop coincided with CISA’s efforts to suppress protected speech on social media platforms during the COVID-19 pandemic. Even I was censored at the behest of our government speech minders. And all while I thought I was being my best self.
As further proof that the stupid people are running everything, Paul exposes U.S. Army officials “improperly stored 80 gas turbine engines” valued at $89.16 million, and 135 hydraulic transmissions (NIIN 14131885), valued at $12.60 million.
Each of the $1.1 million engines were improperly stored for three years!
Apparently, the code to properly store the engines was missing upon their arrival, so, instead of putting the engines in a covered shed they were left outside. At a million dollars an engine, why couldn’t someone just call and ask for the code?
Before we retire for the holidays and hang our stockings with care, Sen. Paul reports that the Cybersecurity Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agency that made itself the arbiter of “misinformation” during the COVID pandemic, created a series of graphic novels, called the “Resilience Series,” to help educate the public about misinformation. There is nothing comical about wasting taxpayer money to justify censorship of constitutionally protected speech.
You can’t make this stuff up. I’d like to tell you to enjoy Sen. Paul’s annual Festivus Report by reading it here, but I won’t. Instead, enjoy the Senator’s wit and cynicism, but remember that boiling anger building inside of you when you next vote.
Merry Christmas and Happy Festivus.
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August 31, 2020
Senator Rand Paul’s wit and cynicism are appreciated, but does voting matter anymore with widespread Democrat/RINO uniparty voter fraud and rigged voting machines?
It’s always more fun to spend other people’s money.
So what’s with all the upset over lab monkeys? Is Rand Paul turning into an animal rights activist?
Are you in favor of mutilating and torturing monkeys to satisfy the demonic urges of Fausti and his minions? Seems so,
Amazing you don’t care about the wellbeing of animals. I’m glad I’m not your pet. However, if I were I would make a point of providing you with a painful life.
I love animals so much, I eat their flesh almost every day. But not monkeys. And I can’t imagine wanting you (or a lab monkey) as a pet. So sorry you need to make life painful for those close to you.
Science Fiction, you missed the whole point of the article. Or you just ignored it.
Nice! Science Fiction makes so much more sense as a moniker for a guy who ignores and twists facts.
A perfect name for the festivus joke of a holiday.
Absolutely no accountability where our money goes….gov’t is out of control
Rand Paul is an idiot and trump synchofant. No end to the nonsense
Rand Paul left out the waste by his comrades in the House. The House extremists demanded more than 700 votes this year on things like reducing salaries of officials they dislike to $1. Congress passed just 27 bills in 2023, making it a historically unproductive Congress. In 2021, when Democrats held the House by the same slim majority the Republicans have now, Congress passed 85 bills that the president signed into law. In two years, the 80th Congress of 1947–1949, famously dubbed the “Do Nothing Congress,” passed 906. It is still pretending they got the goods on Hunter Biden… what has that cost us taxpayers? Tuberville refused to promote military personnel for a year… putting us all in danger. But he didn’t give up his paycheck while holding out on others.
The Festivus is a holiday celebrated on December 23rd, created on the Jerry Seinfeld Show by Frank Costanza , George Costanza’s father, as an alternative to Christmas. According to Seinfeld Fandom, “He came upon the idea after pummeling a man in the face in a toy-store dispute over a doll (for George). In his own words, ‘As I rained blows upon him, I realized, ‘There had to be another way!’”
Ha ha! Thanks for the sitcom history lesson.
Our government has become completely vile and sickening, time for audits of every department courtesy of we the people. Those in charge are like pirates robbing and pillaging until there will be nothing left of our beloved America. All while we the tax payers try and scratch out an existence and feed our families, so much for a perfect union.
Exactly, April!