[StBernard] Coburn Details $7 Billion in Waste from 100 Dumb Projects

[Westley Annis]

Coburn Details $7 Billion in Waste from 100 Dumb Projects
    
Posted by Daniel Horowitz (Diary)
Wednesday, December 21st at 8:03AM EST

At some point we will need to go beyond merely cutting waste, fraud, and
abuse.  We will eventually have to wind down the welfare state and close
government departments and agencies.  However, there is no reason we
shouldn't demand an immediate bipartisan effort to eliminate programs that
are just plain dumb, even according to Democrat socialist ideology.

Nobody has been more assiduous and instrumental in identifying silly
government projects than Senator Tom Coburn.  Yesterday, Senator Coburn
released his annual "Wastebook" profiling 100 "unnecessary, duplicative, or
just plain stupid projects spread throughout the federal government." The
total cost of these programs is $6.9 billion.  Cutting these programs would
only account for roughly 40 hours of our debt, but why spend a penny on this
stuff?

Here are some of the greatest hits:

$120 million in retirement and disability benefits to federal employees who
have died
$30 million to help Pakistani Mango farmers
$550,000 for a documentary about how rock music contributed to the collapse
of the Soviet Union
$10 million for a remake of "Sesame Street" for Pakistan
$764,825 to examine how college students use mobile devices for social
networking.
$113,227 for a video game preservation center in New York
$765,828 to subsidize a "pancakes for yuppies" program in Washington, D.C.
$100,000 for a celebrity chef show in Indonesia
$175,587 for a study on the link between cocaine and the mating habits of
quail
$606,000 for a study about online dating
$17.80 Million in Foreign Aid to. China - (Department of State & U.S. Agency
for International Development)
The Super-Bridge to Nowhere - (Alaska) $15.3 Million
Yes, this is mere pocket change; we will not balance the budget by
eliminating these preposterous projects.  Nevertheless, they reveal just how
apathetic our lawmakers are in handling public funds.  They are also
emblematic of the ridiculous budget process that has been in place in recent
years.  If we are going to pass 1200-page bills that fund the entire
government with such short notice, we will invariably continue to fund these
projects.

Coburn's report gives us another 100 reasons why we should never pass
omnibus bills.

Waste Book - http://is.gd/evVXHv