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Ever Wonder Where Some of Your Tax Dollars Go?

U.S. Senator Tom Coburn, M.D. (R-OK) releases an annual Wastebook that outlines some of the most outlandish spending from the previous year.  Below are some excerpts from the 2013 Wastebook.  If you would like to see the 2013 Wastebook in its entirety just click on the cover graphic at the bottom of this page.

Get Your 2013 Govenment Wastebook Here!

(click image below to download)

  • Uncle Sam Looking for Romance on the Web – (NEH) $914,000

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.”

 

  • Mass Destruction of Weapons – (Department of Defense) $7 billion

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.

 

  • 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

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.

 

  • Government Study Finds Out Wives Should Calm Down (NIH) $325,525

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.

 

  • Hurricane Sandy “Emergency” Funds Spent on TV Ads ($65 million)

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.

 

  • Need Brains!  Fighting Zombies with Pluses and Minuses - (NC) $150,000

A grant from NSF went to a company in North Carolina to develop a

math learning game based on the zombie apocalypse.

 

  • NASA’s Little Green Man (NASA) -- $390,000

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.

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