Festivus Report 2024: A Treasury of Government Waste
Senator Rand Paul airs his grievances and serves up feats of strength with a scalding platter of government waste.
It’s that magical time of year again — when Senator Rand Paul delivers The Festivus Report, a brutal takedown of the year’s most jaw-dropping government waste, guaranteed to make you laugh, cry, or rage-tweet into the void.
Senator Paul’s grievances are many, and rightly so. He says:
This year, I am highlighting a whopping $1,008,313,329,626.12. 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.
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. And I will continue my fight against government waste this holiday season.
Among the gems uncovered this year:
$419,470 to study cocaine addiction in rats
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) funded a study to determine if lonely rats are more likely to seek cocaine than their happier counterparts. Because apparently, locking down the global population during the COVID pandemic wasn’t enough of an experiment in social isolation.$10,000 for a climate-themed drag show on ice
The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) awarded a grant to a self-described “queer cabaret arts organization,” the Bearded Ladies Cabaret, for a performance featuring drag queens and polar bears to raise climate change awareness. “If we can get these drag queens to ice skate, maybe, just maybe, we can solve the climate crisis,” says the group’s artistic director.$12 million for a pickleball complex in Las Vegas
The Department of the Interior is hard at work turning 5 acres of Nevada desert into a 30-court pickleball complex. The goal is to put Las Vegas on the global pickleball map by hosting local and international tournaments. As Senator Paul says, “There's irony in a city synonymous with high-stakes gambling investing 12 million American tax dollars in pickleball — a sport often associated with retirees looking for a low-stakes, leisurely pastime.”$2.24 million to infect cats with COVID-19
Cornell University received grants to study whether felines can contract and transmit COVID-19, leading to the needless suffering and death of over 30 cats. Apparently, curiosity didn't just kill the cat, government funding helped, too!$4.8 million on Ukrainian influencers
The Department of State spent millions to engage social media influencers in Ukraine. Because when it comes to foreign policy, likes and shares are the new diplomacy.
From redundant federal programs to grants so specific they sound like The Onion Babylon Bee headlines, the Festivus Report 2024 doesn’t hold back. Paul even includes a section on how government shutdowns ironically cost taxpayers more money, proving that inefficiency is an art form in Washington.
Whether you agree with Paul’s politics or not, the Festivus Report is bipartisan in its mockery. The sheer absurdity of some of these expenditures transcends political affiliation. It's a reminder that while average Americans are working hard trying to put food on the table and pinching pennies wherever they can, their hard-earned taxpayer dollars are being blown on things like promoting circuses in city parks. Because… why not? When the source of money seems to be never ending, you can do these kinds of things and get away with it.
Happy Festivus, everyone. Let the grievances continue.
Some of the things that come out in these stories are ridiculous but there is a different root cause of the problem.
The real issue is the government allocating funding that does not have an actual set destination. The agency budgets are like a gas that will expand to fill whatever is allocated to them. Their metric for success is that they spend the money that they were told to spend. In fact, they are punished by not spending it down every year.
There is an entire industry surrounding "Grant Writers" whose sole purpose is to know all the right boxes to check and the people who approve them have little discretion and they have to approve until the budget is spent regardless of the actual content of the grants. When they throw in all the buzzwords that fit the agenda of the party in power, they get the fast track.
If the administration wants to prioritize climate change, every application will have a climate change spin written into it. You get bonus points for doubling down on every agenda issue that can be ticked off. That's how you get an artistic show of drag queens for climate change and polar bears. I am only surprised that they didn't throw in some spin supporting Ukraine, Palestine, and Israel. The cognitive dissonance is immaterial. All that matters is that they can check off the agenda points.
Where did the other 3.8 trillion go?????