Sen. Rand Paul released a report on Monday outlining more than $1 trillion in government waste from the past year.
The 2024 “Festivus” report highlighted various instances of wasteful government spending from the federal government, including a pickleball complex in Las Vegas and a cabaret show on ice. This year marks Paul’s 10th annual report.
“This year, I am highlighting a whopping $1,008,313,329,626.12,” Paul, R-Ky., wrote in the report. “That’s over $1 trillion in government waste, including things like ice-skating drag queens, a $12 million Las Vegas pickleball complex, $4,840,082 on Ukrainian influencers, and more! No matter how much money the government has wasted, politicians keep demanding even more.”
The Department of the Interior spent $12 million on the Las Vegas pickleball complex, according to the report. Interior also spent $720,479 on wetland conservation projects for ducks in Mexico.
“I have a lot of problems with federal spending, and now it’s time to hear all about them,” Paul wrote in the report.
The National Endowment for the Arts awarded the Bearded Ladies Cabaret a $10,000 grant to support a cabaret show on ice skates focused on climate change, according to the report. The NEA also spent $365,000 to promote circuses in city parks, the report states.
The State Department spent $500,000 to expand the U.S. Embassy in Ethiopia’s #USInvestsInEthiopians social media campaign to a larger national public relations campaign, according to the report. The State Department also sent $253,653 to Bosnia to fight “misinformation,” spent $2.1 million for Paraguayan border security, and spent $3 million for “girl-centered climate action” in Brazil, the report says.
The Department of Health and Human Services spent $419,470 to determine if lonely rats seek cocaine more than happy rats, the report states.
The National Science Foundation spent $288,563 to ensure bird-watching groups have safe spaces, also known as “affinity groups,” according to the report.
President-elect Donald Trump announced on Nov. 12 that he had picked Vivek Ramaswamy and Elon Musk to cochair a new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), aimed at cutting down on wasteful government spending.
“As always, taking the path to fiscal responsibility is often a lonely journey, but I’ve been fighting government waste like DOGE before DOGE was cool,” Paul wrote in his report. “And I will continue my fight against government waste this holiday season.”
Many Americans have faced steep costs amid high inflation throughout President Joe Biden’s term, with inflation hitting a peak of 9.1% in June 2022. While inflation rates have eased some since then, prices still remain high, with the consumer price index, a measure of the price of everyday goods, experiencing a year-over-year increase of 2.7% in November, according to a Dec. 11 report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Some experts have attributed massive government spending under the Biden-Harris administration to fueling inflation rates. The national debt was at $36.16 trillion as of Tuesday, according to U.S. Treasury fiscal data.
A spokesperson for Paul did not respond to a request for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Originally published by the Daily Caller News Foundation
Ireland Owens is a contributor at the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Reprinted with permission from The Daily Signal – By Ireland Owens
The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of AMAC or AMAC Action.
The wasteful spending report needs to include those who are behind it. Expose those politicians and bureaucrats responsible for this disregard for financial accountability.
Border security in another country but not our own country. That is totally messed up. I say expose all who are wasting money for their own gain. I don’t care if you are a Democrat, Republican or an independent. Expose them ALL.
Who is authorizing this type of spending? They all should be voted out! That’s what’s wrong with our govt. All of these stupid ‘gifts’ at the taxpayer’s expense? If they want to sponsor such insanity, let them take it out of their bank accts
Rand Paul should send this report to DOGE. Remember when Elon Musk said DOGE would cut 2 trillion dollars in government spending. Since this report exposes over 1.08 trillion dollars worth of wasteful spending, it would be a good place to start.
We must have missed the report that identified how to tell a happy rat from a lonely rat.
I agree with MichaelJ. Expose the people behind these wasteful projects.
Enlist Rand Paul as First Advisor to the committee.
We know there is a waste beyond imagination, what we don’t know who is the hand behind it, will it be even slapped , never mind chopped off for theft, is it so mighty that is has no overseer? No wonder the chest is empty
Expose people. Who proposed it, who voted for it? Hang it around their neck like the weight it is and let them drag it around for all to see.
I have to believe there are many faceless/nameless bureaucrats behind a lot of it.
Every expenditure needs to have those that sponsored and/or approved it attached for
public record. That way the idiots passing tis crap cannot hide in the background!
I have no words to express the magnitude of my disgust for this ridiculous government spending…and even fewer dollars as a result.
An admirable and necessary report but wake me when those responsible are held accountable with arrests, prosecutions, and incarcerations.
Who signs off on this stupid spending? That would be a good thing to know. I love pickleball but why does the department of the interior need to build a PB complex? Maybe we’d save a few trillion more if we just stopped giving money to countries that hate us. How much “aid” did we give to Venezuela, I mean besides taking in all their prisoners and crazies so they don’t have to feed them? How much to Nicaragua and Mexico and Guatemala who did nothing to keep their people from overwhelming our border? I guess I could go on for days…GO DOGE!
It’s not just Democrats. There are many Republicans that have been playing the game for years and raking in the money (our money) into their pockets. Those need to go. Anyone that does not vote for President Trumps cabinet appointments also needs to go. All of the Republicans need to set their self-serving ideas aside and unite under our elected leader or be voted out.
We taxpayers are paying for empty or nearly-empty buildings all over the country, “workers” who never have to come to work, “workers” who come to work but porn surf or do others things on government time, plus all the ridiculous “studies” about whores in China, “trans” animals, etc. What a travesty!
Find out who the authors of each of these are and spread the news throughout their districts!
DODG make sure they get all the information they’re the ones that are gonna be doing the cleaning house and Paul should be on the same committee!!!
It is time to get real here. The people appointed (not elected) at the top of each department must be held accountable for this wasteful spending. If they are not being audited each quarter, I would suggest that would be required. There are plenty of great honest accountants out there who would love the opportunity.
When weas reading this I got to angry to finish. Came back and did finish it. I would like them to PUBLISH the names and states of the authors and signers of the bills, EVERYONE of them. It made me, just as mad when I found out the amount of taxpayers dollars they have spent on the the joke called climate change. It went from $1.5 billion in 2021 to $9.5 billion in 2023?? With ALL that money spent ALL I ever hear is the climate is getting worse. Hey bozo’s IF you can’t fix it STOP spending MY money on it.
And this has been going on for decades. Disgusting.
The idiots voting to put this garbage in place should be required to pay for it out of their own pockets. I didn’t vote people into office to squander away my hard-earned money. If they want to flush money down the toilet, let them flush their own. Take away the golden parachutes and the perks. Time to expose these demoncrap purveyors of poop and take away their salaries.
All these waste programs on this list of Rand Paul is what has been wrong with Bidens presidency. The waste that has been perpetrated in the name of trans is not to be believed. Ice skating drag queens and ducks in New Mexico. Isn’t that a state cost New Mexico should bear. Anything for the congressmen and women to make money for their state. Oh wait a minute does the state even get it or does it go directly into the congressmen women’s pockets. I think tge latter. Because why is it that they always have these add on added to a bill that helps no one except the politician. More will come out in the coming months. All the lies and wastes and the disastrous war in the Ukraine. Bidens dealing with Iran. No matter how many people he pardons there is always one lonely witness who wrote it all down. These heroes we will hear from, soon.
Senator Paul doing the same thing year after year and getting the same result. I respect what he’s trying to do but it’s NOT working! You go DOGE
Defund deny funding
Sell empty bldgs for Local use IF needed
I am hopeful they may be able to cut wasteful spending but I’m sure there will be lots of push back. But these politicians need to understand fiscal responsibility. After all the American people have to make tough choices all the time on what our money needs to be spent on responsibly.
The moment a political complains about the spending cuts, they are the ones that support the idea to spend tax payers money on their donors and buddies. This article only outlined the knuckleheads in all the non DoD departments. Wait until you see the wasteful spending by the armed services. Number one on the list for DoD is how many uniform changes are they going to do, in the past few years there have been numerous uniform changes at the cost of millions. Government dies nothing well – NOTHING!
While the Festivus report shows some of the ridiculous expenditures of taxpayer money, I’d like to see a comprehensive listing readily available to the public examine at their leisure. I remember back during the Vietnam War the media published daily listings of soldiers killed along with their names. Wouldn’t it be great if we had an unbiased media that would do the same thing listing each day’s government spending so we could all be constantly aware of how much is being wasted. It won’t happen of course because the media, for the most part, is no longer reporting. Their involvement is purely of a propaganda nature.
These are all bribes.
I’m disgusted by the amount of waste we have in our government!! They, especially when Democrats are in power, spend so much trying to influence people to vote for them while neglecting the American people!! Give me an opportunity to red line that “budget”, I’ll make it make so much more sense but I am not beholden to anyone and maybe that’s the problem!!!
President Trump cannot arrive soon enough
Not enough control
The biggest government waste has been all of the money sent to Iran, Ukraine and other countries, AND the money that is being spent on illegal immigration.
IF DJT CAN BEGIN TO REDUCE OUR NATIONAL DEBT HE MAY GO DOWN AS ONE OF OUR GREATEST PRESIDENTS.
EVERYONE KNOWS current out-of-control inflation is the sole fault of the current illegitimate Marxist JB Rat Regime. We also know things are far, far worse than the Rats and their pet legacy media Pravda are telling us.
I have seen Gov. Waste firsthand, new material burned or sold for scrap. 5 million on Wolf transplant in Colorado. It takes ten Gov. workers to do the work of 3.
Get the Democratics out of office and maybe we can afford food.
And we..the taxpayers…are footing the bill. They vote themselves raises and spend like it’s water and don’t give a damn about the people who are actually paying for it.
It is all well and entertaining to list this wasteful spending and to identify the department responsible but that obviously does no good. How about finding out who APPROVED this stupidity and first shaming them and then firing them. Or is it too much to demand accountability from government officials?
Thank you, Rand Paul. Some of what the government wastes money on is really ridiculous. What is worse is we the people never find out about it until the money has been spent with no way to retrieve it.
I read about Rand Paul’s waste list years ago as well as a yearly publication from Citizen’s Against Government Waste. No one ever followed through. Maybe now DOGE will. I hope Paul is recruited for this. No sense reinventing the wheel when he already has a list. There are other things to do, too, like retiring whole departments.
Unspeakable waste, I haven’t been able to afford a pot roast in 2 years and that kind of government waste pisses me off!!
We have to do a better job of educating how important it is to vote. Then we have to educate common sense so people can make rational decisions on who to vote for. It is our government, and we need to stop voting in career politicians instead of common-sense citizens. It will take some time to weed out those who don’t care about the people and only care about their careers. In the meantime, one suggestion is to pass a law that gives the president line-item veto power allowing those useless expenditures to be eliminated. The only sure way to change our government and its policies is to vote in people that have our needs and desires ahead of their own.
This is a disgusting list. And not even complete. Reading this makes us angry. We all can think of many worthwhile causes this money could have helped. Then I read the comments. Great thoughts. A lot of these expenses can’t be traced back to any single authority, they probably aren’t even dated, or their just isn’t any paperwork to back how the funds were granted. And think about the fact this is the tenth report. Ten years of this. And none of our leaders have been held accountable for any of this. I have my doubts that anything will happen to curb most of this outrageous waste. I can be hopeful, but until we at least pare down the bureaucracy, expect every paper generated be duly signed and dated and recorded, none of this will change. We, the people are becoming louder and more forceful in demanding answers to the waste we are expected to fund. Keep it up!
Correct, any articles, lists, etc., should also include the names of House and Senate members who have spent tax dollars on ridiculous and frivolous things. Funding for cancer research and other important medical studies should be funded but not used for executive salaries. But I would like to know who, how much, and for what.
Rand Paul should be a leader in the DOGE, he has long been sounding the alarm on Gov’t waste. America needs more just like him to stop the stupid waste that has gone on for many decades.And expose all those who approved, are behind it and or profit from it and there are many, including Joe Bidumb who has made a lot of money while sticking it to America!
Sadly for the American taxpayer all these reports go no where. Hopefully with DOGE action may be taken. We need to stop funding ‘research’ in other countries and stop the unnecessary waste here. The federal governments #1 job is national security – closing our borders, keeping us safe from within and from players outside our borders. The only entitlements that need to be protected are what taxpayers have actually paid into: Social Security and Medicare. Our various ‘departments’ are grossly overpaid and given powers our constitution does not.
I would like to see term limits for congress and senate but also a bill passed to prevent any members from being paid by lobbyist, speaking, etc. Live on you salary. People can be elected into office poor and leave millionaires – on $174,000 a year or whatever their salary is. Let’s not forget they can get reimbursed for their expenses in DC which can add $34,000+ in tax free money. No cabinet post should ever get paid more than the president.
Knowing that our government is throwing away our tax dollars infuriates me. Anyone who works for a living except for the very wealthy knows you need a budget. Seems all they do is say “yes” to just about anything and then never keep track of how or even if the money is used. I truly hope that the new “DOGE” group truly seeks out ridiculous projects like the ones listed and ends them AND finds a way to prevent this disgusting waste in the future. Thanks to Rand Paul for showing this waste. Maybe he should be in DOGE!
While I always enjoy AMAC’s articles, I think the writer is being generous in his/her estimation of inflation. During Trump’s first term, a 12 pack of 12 ounce sodas was $3.39 at Walmart. Now the sodas are $7.99.That’s over a 130 percent increase. So while I may not be the brightest bulb in the pack, my grade school math skills tell me inflation is a lot more than 9.1 percent. Also, Rand needs to add the million dollars that was authorized for the so-called White House bathroom “refresh” when brain dead Joe and Dr. Jill invaded the premises. Never saw anything in the fawning media showing what we the taxpayers got for our million dollars. Gold toilets, perhaps?
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Why are we giving money to other countries AT ALL unless it is in our national security interest. This kind of junk gets spent because they cram it into these huge appropriations bills that are too huge for anyone to read and we have too many in Congress that are complacent to business as usual! Rand Paul is a rock star in many ways. Everyone should be donating to him monthly even if it is a small amount. (there are others like him who want to do the business of the People)
Each and every representative of the U.S. people in both houses who voted for any of these listed spending items has violated their oath of office and should be charged with these crimes and prosecuted and thrown in jail.
This is horrible. We are barely making it due to the price of everything and they are wasting money on stupid stuff. Americans need to be more aware of what is being spent and have a way to see what is going on. So many seniors are struggling because of the high prices since Biden was elected. They need help. Not these ridiculous wasteful spending that the politicians are doing.