Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul’s annual Festivus Report highlights the government’s most outlandish expenditures, which totaled a whopping $900,000,000,000 of waste last year alone.
Sen. Paul’s office releases the report at the end of every year to emphasize the outrageous decisions our government makes using taxpayer dollars. Topping the list for 2023 was Barbie fraud. When the government approved $800 billion for the Covid Paycheck Protection Program, scammers wanted their not-so-fair share. Instead of submitting an authentic photo to prove their identity, scammers used images of Barbie dolls, which the government’s AI approval systems failed to detect.
“What was supposed to be an AI system to verify proof of identity, quickly exposed the stupidity of the program,” the Festivus Report reads. “The verification system did not catch the images of dolls uploaded by fraudsters. Somehow the Small Business Administration carelessly approved the applicants from Toyland and sent out improper COVID-19 PPP payments.”
The second and most obvious government waste is a result of our endlessly growing national debt. The government’s interest payments on the national debt in 2023 reached $659 billion.
“Because we don’t have the funds to pay that, we have to borrow it — a large portion from China. We borrow from China to pay the interest on funds we couldn’t afford to spend in the first place.”
Monkey business in South Carolina funded by the government was another top hit. Dr. Fauci’s “Monkey Island” is a 3,000-monkey colony, raised on a state-owned island and funded by the National Institute of Health. The federal government established the colony in the late 1970s, and in 2023 it cost taxpayers over $33 million to operate.
“NIH also paid millions to a large pharmaceutical company to maintain Dr. Fauci’s Monkey Island. Monkey business is a big business.”
To top things off, a wildly insightful study funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture researched dogs' rectal temperature after walking outside in the summer heat. The study found that fur color did not affect their body temperatures after a hot summer’s walk.
“That’s it. That’s the taxpayer-funded, cutting-edge study,” the report mocks. “Perhaps taxpayers should have Congress put USDA on a tighter fiscal leash.”
These outrageous payments affirm we need a tighter leash on the federal government, but do We the People have any power to discipline an out-of-control government? Surely we do with Article V of the Constitution. It allows us to call a 50-state convention to truly restrain a spoiled-rotten child. The people and the states were intended to be the parents, it's time we set the boundaries straight.
Join Sen. Rand Paul in supporting the Convention of States movement. Sign the Convention of States petition below!
