Does Tequila Make Fish Crazy? Washington Spends For Answers.

Hold onto your wallet. I understand that Congress is still trying to move that huge spending bill. It has gotten somewhat smaller, thanks to Senator Joe Manchin who refused to vote for the original outrageous version.

The new bill should also die a natural death before any life can be breathed into it. There is so much waste that it should be a sin to tax the American taxpayers to pay for it.

I have a little experience with how these huge monster bills work at the state level. There is no comparison to the federal bills and the ludicrous spending that takes place within these bills “that have to be passed so you can see what’s in them” as Nancy Pelosi explained once.

The difference at the state level is, we must balance our budget. Money is unlimited in Washington. When they run out of money, they cut another hole in the taxpayers’ pocket and warm up the printing presses.

Have you ever gone to www.USDebtClock.org and watched how fast the debt is clicking up? It’s amazing to see. Currently the U.S. debt is more than $30 trillion dollars and growing rapidly. As interest rates rise, that sum will grow even faster. That equates to more than $91,000 of debt per citizen and $241,000 per taxpayer. Did you have any idea you owed so much money and you have nothing to show for it?
There is an earmark of $200 million in the new bill for Pelosi’s Park. This is a park in her neighborhood of San Francisco. This is one of the wealthiest areas of the country, don’t you think they could pay for their own park?

An allocation of $25 million is included for “Anti-discrimination and Bias Training” at Health and Human Services. We should be laughing this out of existence. The idea that an agency administering a social benefits program is full of racists, is absurd.

Several years back, a Senator from Wisconsin started the “Golden Fleece Award” for the most absurd wasteful spending projects. Believe it or not, he was a Democrat. That shows how much things have changed. There is not one Democrat today who thinks any money handed out in Washington is wasteful. These are a few of the spending projects that won the Golden Fleece Awards at that time as pointed out by taxpayer.net:

• $289,000 to study measurements of airline stewardesses. Measurements included the distance between knee to knee while sitting and the length of the buttocks.
• $400,000 to study activities inside a Peruvian brothel.
• $120,000 to study why prisoners want to get out of jail.
• $103,000 to compare aggressiveness in sun fish who drink tequila vs gin.
• $170,000 to study the effects of scantily clad women on Chicago’s’ male drivers.
• $11,000 to study why people are rude and cheat on the tennis courts in Arlington, Virginia.
• $81,000 to a California zoo to send two animal keepers to attend a three-day elephant workshop in Tulsa, Ok.

The federal government has grown so immense that there seems to be no end in sight. At the turn of the century, the Department of Agriculture had 3,000 employees to handle 6 million farms. By 1935, there were 6.3 million farmers and 20,000 employees. We now have fewer than 2 million farmers and the Ag Department has 100,000 employees.

A wool and mohair subsidy started after World War II, brought on by fear that if we had to fight a war in cold climates, GI Joe would not be warm enough. Within a few years, synthetic fabrics replaced wool for cold weather climates. At that point, this program should have been deader than Jerry Garcia, but it kept rocking on. It was eliminated in 1995 but then revived. Last I heard, it was dying again.

You’ve heard me rant before about subsidies to the National Endowment for the Arts. Taxpayers have been funding this atrocity for generations. It wouldn’t be so painful if it was some fabulous piece of art created by the likes of Renoir, Matisse, or da Vinci. One piece of art was called “Piss Christ.” It was a crucifix submerged in the artists’ urine. In another show, an artist covered her nude body with chocolate and shouted obscenities to the audience. My favorite was a poem that received a grant. The poem, LIGHGHT, received funds for that creation. That’s it. It’s not a typo. That’s the entire poem. 

Other grants awarded to the National Institute of Mental Health:

•  17-year study of slang terms used by Puerto Ricans in NY when under stress.
•  32-year study of jaw muscles of pigeons.
• 9-year study of sexual behaviors of lizards.
• A study to examine gas emissions of cow flatulence.
• Study to teach college students how to watch TV.
• Study the sex life of a Japanese Quail.

Nobody can make this stuff up.

There are hundreds or thousands of these silly programs. There appears to be no end in sight. It saddens me to think that these are some of the ways that our hard-earned dollars are being spent.