The Waste List > Total Value of Government Waste: $18,224,377,097

[Origanalist]

I'm sure people can add to this...

Every one is a link at the original source..


WASTE: Student field trip to watch the movie Red Tails - $57,000



WASTE: Talking urinal cakes - $10,000



WASTE: Sidewalks to nowhere - $1,100,000



WASTE: Corporate welfare for world’s largest snack food maker - $1,300,000



WASTE: Bizarre and wasteful “academic” summer studies - $498,000



WASTE: Highway funds pay for sculpture garden - $145,000



WASTE: Alabama Watermelon Queen Tour - $25,000



WASTE: Pentagon weapons funds buy beef jerky - $700,000



WASTE: Failed Iraqi police training program - $400,000,000



WASTE: Video game study on memory loss - $1,200,000



WASTE: Philosophy booth and “academic” happiness course - $24,995



WASTE: Climate change musical - $697,177



WASTE: Black liquor tax loophole - $268,000,000



WASTE: Robot Squirrels - $325,000



WASTE: Rubber tire subsidy to billion-dollar tire company - $6,900,000



WASTE: Study on heavy drinking in thirties linked to immaturity - $548,731



WASTE: Taxpayer-subsidized cupcakes - $2,000,000



WASTE: Taxpayer dollars go to a brewery - $750,970



WASTE: Old-fashioned x-rays for prisoners - $1,300,000



WASTE: Alaskan sightseeing trains - $38,800,000



WASTE: Video game based on author Henry David Thoreau’s writings - $40,000



WASTE: Dancing robots as iPhone disc jockeys - $547,430



WASTE: Taxpayer-funded comedy group tours India - $100,000



WASTE: Taxpayer dollars fail to reform struggling schools - $7,300,000



WASTE: Abandoned homes in New Orleans receive federal funds - $21,600,000



WASTE: Old-fashioned trolley car - $35,600,000



WASTE: Medicaid payments to tax evaders - $330,000,000



WASTE: Medicaid audit program costs more than it saves - $30,000,000



WASTE: Powerful internet routers installed in tiny rural libraries and schools - $24,000,000



WASTE: Department of Energy award for App that already exists - $100,000



WASTE: Moroccan pottery classes - $27,000,000



WASTE: Penny production - $70,000,000



WASTE: Unused airport in Oklahoma - $450,000



WASTE: Paying for veterans’ health care twice - $1,000,000,000



WASTE: Overseas vacations for athletes - $5,500,000



WASTE: Unnecessary courthouse design - $322,000,000



WASTE: Missile Defense Agency’s research problems - $1,000,000,000



WASTE: Another bridge to nowhere - $520,000



WASTE: Book vending machine - $35,000



WASTE: Phantom and unused grant account fees - $2,000,000



WASTE: Cartoon school receives $225,000 - $225,000



WASTE: Taxpayer-funded pet shampoo and toothpaste - $505,000



WASTE: Improper food stamp payments - $4,500,000,000



WASTE: Government-subsidized cell phones - $1,500,000,000



WASTE: Fruit and veggies YouTube video contest - $106,000



WASTE: Toy exhibit - $150,000



WASTE: Taxpayers fund graffiti mural to combat obesity - $13,000



WASTE: Smokey Bear balloons - $49,447



WASTE: Failed healthy food initiative - $32,000,000



WASTE: Electric vehicle tax credit - $74,000,000



WASTE: Taxpayer-funded tour boat - $3,300,000



WASTE: Taxpayer-funded phone app - $1,000,000



WASTE: Taxpayer-funded potato chips - $49,990



WASTE: Duplicate magazine preservation - $270,000



WASTE: Fruit fly sexual attractiveness study - $939,771



WASTE: Abuse of college tax credits - $3,200,000,000



WASTE: Free (taxpayer-funded) bus rides for Super Bowl attendees - $142,419



WASTE: Taxpayer-funded yacht engines - $489,000



WASTE: Job contractors pay highest bidder - $4,600,000



WASTE: Mars Menu - $947,000



WASTE: Television rerun study - $666,905



WASTE: Postal Service overprints commemorative stamps - $2,000,000



WASTE: Professional sports tax loopholes - $91,000,000



WASTE: Unused and outdated NASA database - $771,000



WASTE: Taxpayer-funded smartphone research - $1,300,000



WASTE: Circus classes - $20,000



WASTE: California towns sell federal grants to neighbors - $206,426



WASTE: NASA video games and entertainment programs - $1,600,000



WASTE: Speed reading faces - $30,000



WASTE: Unconstitutional courthouse cameras - $500,000



WASTE: Taxpayer-funded study finds golfers are better when they envision a larger hole - $350,000



WASTE: Motorsports museum - $300,000



WASTE: Study on Idaho firearm industry - $24,877



WASTE: Video game festival - $50,000



WASTE: Book club funding goes to ghost tours, fishing lessons, and movie screenings - $1,000,000



WASTE: Government overpays for products and services - $1,000,000,000



WASTE: Science dollars wasted on Antarctica projects - $20,500,000



WASTE: Faulty FEMA calculations lead to unnecessary building replacement - $75,400,000



WASTE: USDA caviar promotion - $300,000



WASTE: Luxurious bus shelters - $388,000



WASTE: Government-backed business loan losses - $3,400,000



WASTE: Arcade-style floor mats for gym class - $90,750



WASTE: New NASA visitor center built next door to old NASA visitor center - $12,400,000



WASTE: Taxpayer-funded house renovations lose money - $18,410



WASTE: Identity thieves steal billions from IRS - $3,900,000,000



WASTE: Celebrity chefs and healthy food vending machines - $612,808



WASTE: College anti-trash poster contest - $67,926



WASTE: Taxpayer-funded Star Wars party - $365



WASTE: Russian weapons institutes recruiting new scientists with U.S. taxpayer funds - $15,000,000



WASTE: Navy picks two companies to build new ships increasing costs by $148 million - $148,000,000



WASTE: Video game controller design - $1,500,000



WASTE: Taxpayer-funded booze - $99,000



WASTE: Vineyard grape-growing subsidies - $1,500,000



WASTE: 100 Year Starship Initiative - $300,000



WASTE: Taxpayer-funded online lawyer training - $500,000



WASTE: Lego city - $3,700



WASTE: National Science Foundation “Prom Week” video game - $516,000



WASTE: Contracts for trophies and typewriters - $24,000,000

http://www.nrcc.org/thewastelist/

[Uriel999]

Robot squirrels and Lego cities sound awesome! Don't hate on them. I want a robot squirrel!

[Origanalist]

Robot squirrels and Lego cities sound awesome! Don't hate on them. I want a robot squirrel!

I want a 100 Year Starship Initiative. (or just a 100 year starship...)

[youngbuck]

W..T...F...?
WASTE: Russian weapons institutes recruiting new scientists with U.S. taxpayer funds - $15,000,000

[Origanalist]

W..T...F...?

Why not? It's free money.

[kcchiefs6465]

Caught me at a bad time but...

2.8B per B-2 Bomber

$80,000 a Javelin missile


[Bump]

I've got a few figures people ought to know.

[kcchiefs6465]

And someone please do me the favor of repping for one of the best damn thread ideas there were.

We need links though, IMO.

[kcchiefs6465]

And how tf do I forget the 15 billion the Air Force [IIRC] literally can't find.

Can we maybe get this thread turned into a sticky?

I need to go through some notes.

[Origanalist]

And someone please do me the favor of repping for one of the best damn thread ideas there were.

We need links though, IMO.

Go to the link at the bottom of the OP, every one is a link. And this thread could literally go on forever.

[tangent4ronpaul]

The Pentagon can't find 3 Trillion

-t

[thoughtomator]

the $450 billion or so thrown at the F-35 may turn out to be a total waste - they can't even fly those planes in cloudy weather

[Origanalist]

We're going to need a book keeper in no time for this one.

[kcchiefs6465]

Let's go a few years back for some sources.. I would mention that this bullshit we owe for...



Waste beyond your wildest dreams

But just the scale of the Pentagon's budget alone can't explain its prodigious ability to waste money. Another quality is required- world-class incompetence. There are so many examples of this that they tend to blur together, numbing the mind. Here are just a few: According to a US Senate hearing, $13 billion the Pentagon handed out to weapons contractors between 1985 and 1995 was simply "lost." Another $15 billion remains unaccounted for because of "financial management troubles." That's $2B billion-right off the top-that has simply disappeared...

Career criminals

... According to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, every single one of the top ten weapons contractors was convicted of or admitted to defrauding the government between 1980 and 1992. For example:
* Grumman paid the government $20 million to escape criminal liability for coercing subcontractors into making political contributions.
* Lockheed was convicted of paying millions in bribes to obtain classified planning documents.
* Northrop was fined $17 million for falsifying test data on its cruise missiles and fighter jets.
* Rockwell was fined $5.5 million for committing criminal fraud against the Air Force.

In another study, the Project on Government Oversight (PGO) searched public records from October 1989 to February 1994 and found-in just that 4~/~-year period-85 instances of fraud, waste and abuse in weapons contracting. For example: Boeing, Grumman, Hughes, Raytheon and RCA pleaded guilty to illegal trafficking in classified documents and paid a total of almost $15 million in restitution, reimbursements, fines, etc.

* Hughes pleaded guilty to procurement fraud in one case, was convicted of it in a second case and, along with McDonnell Douglas and General Motors, settled out-of-court for a total of more than $1 million dollars in a third case.
* Teledyne paid $5 million in a civil settlement for false testing, plus $5 million for repairs.
* McDonnell Douglas settled for a total of more than $22 million in four "defective pricing" cases.

But General Electric was the champ. PGO lists fourteen cases, including a conviction for mail and procurement fraud that resulted in a criminal fine of $10 million and restitution of $2.2 million. In our own research, we found several other examples of GE crimes and civil violations:
* In 1961, GE pleaded guilty to price-fixing and paid a $372,500 fine.
* In 1977, it was convicted of price-fixing again.
* In 1979, it settled out-of-court when the State of Alabama sued it for dumping PCBs in a river.
* In 1981, it was convicted of setting up a $1.25 million slush fund to bribe Puerto Rican officials.
* In 1985, GE pleaded guilty to 108 counts of fraud on a Minuteman missile contract. In addition, the chief engineer of GE's space systems division was convicted of perjury, and GE paid a fine of a million dollars.
* In 1985, it pleaded guilty to falsifying time cards.
* In 1989, it paid the government $3.5 million to settle five civil lawsuits alleging contractor fraud at a jet-engine plant (which involved the alteration of 9,000 daily labor vouchers to inflate its Pentagon billings).

In 1990, GE was convicted of criminal fraud for cheating the Army on a contract for battlefield computers; it declined to appeal and paid $16 million in criminal and civil fines. ($11.7 million of this amount was to settle government complaints that it had padded its bids on 200 other military and space contracts-which comes to just $58,000 or so per contract.)

In 1993, GE sold its weapons division to Martin Marietta for $3 billion (retaining 23.5% of the stock and two seats on the board of directors). The largest investigation of Pentagon fraud took place between 1986 and 1990. Called Operation Ill Wind, it began when Pentagon official John Marlowe was caught molesting little girls. He cut a deal to stay out of jail and, for the next few years, secretly recorded hundreds of conversations with weapons contractors.

There's no way of knowing how much the crimes Ill Wind looked into cost the taxpayers, but the investigation, which cost $20 million, brought in ten times that much in fines. According to Wall Street Journal reporter Andy Pasztor, "more than 90 companies and individuals were convicted of felonies... including eight of the military's fifteen largest suppliers....Boeing, GE and United Technologies pleaded guilty...Hughes, Unisys, Raytheon, Loral, Litton, Teledyne, Cubic, Hazeltine, Whittaker and LTV...admitted they violated the law."

Unisys signed the largest Pentagon fraud settlement in history: $190 million in fines, penalties and forgone profits (which means they weren't allowed to charge for cost overruns the way military contractors usually do).

Assistant Navy Secretary Melvyn Paisley was the central figure in the Ill Wind scandal and the highest-ranking person convicted (he was sentenced to four years in prison). He ran his office like a supermarket for weapons manufacturers, soaking up bribes, divvying up multibillion-dollar contracts and diverting work to a firm he secretly controlled with a partner.

Paisley may have been a bit more...flamboyant than most, but there was nothing terribly unusual about his approach. As of 1994, nearly 70 of the Pentagon's 100 largest suppliers were under investigation. Fines for that year totaled a record $1.2 billion.

That may sound like a lot, but it's less than 2% of the weapons industry's net income (which averaged $64 billion a year in 1994 and 1995). A billion or two in fines is hardly an incentive to end the corruption and waste in Pentagon contracting.

The black budget

Not all Pentagon waste is visible. Hidden within the military budget is a secret "black budget" that's not subject to any congressional oversight (toothless as that usually is). It includes money for the CIA (tucked away in the Air Force budget, it gets about 10% of the total) and for less well-known but better-funded "intelligence" organizations like the
National Security Agency (NSA) and the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO).

In 1995, several members of Congress tried to argue that, with the Cold War over, there was no harm in publishing the total amount of the intelligence black budget, without details on how it was spent. Even this modest proposal went down to defeat but, in the process, led to the absurd spectacle of legislators mentioning the figure-$28 billion for fiscal 1996-while arguing that it shouldn't be publicly disclosed.

John Pike of the Federation of American Scientists estimates that the 1996 black budget included an additional $3 billion or so in military "stealth" projects, for a total of about $31 billion-down from about $36 billion a year during the Reagan years. Pike attributes the decrease to a couple of projects that grew too huge to be hidden in the black budget.
One of the projects that "surfaced" into the public budget is the B-2 bomber. Originally projected to cost $550 million each, B-2's ended up costing $2.2 billion each-literally more than their weight in gold.

Another is MILSTAR, which is designed to ''fight and win a six-month nuclear war...long after the White House and the Pentagon are reduced to rubble." The Air Force has tried to kill this idiotic program four times since it emerged from the black budget, but Congress won't listen. MILSTAR has cost us between $8 and $12 billion so far, and could cost another $4.5 billion between 1996 and 2000.

Since the black budget is completely off the books, it encourages waste on a titanic scale. As one Pentagon employee put it: "In a black project, people don't worry about money. If you need money, you got it. If you screw up and need more, you got it. You're just pouring money into the thing until you get it right. The incentive isn't there to do it right the first time. Who's going to question it?" ...

Don't call it bribery

Why do our legislators put up with military waste and fraud? For the same reason they do anything. Defense PACs gave members of Congress $7.5 million in 1993 and 1994. And PAC money is just part of the story.

Of the $4.5 billion in unrequested weapons funding added to the Pentagon budget for fiscal 1996, 74% was spent in or near the home districts of representatives who sit on the House National Security Committee. Another $290 million was spent in or around Newt Gingrich's home district, Cobb County, Georgia. (Cobb gets more federal pork than any county except Arlington in Virginia, which is right next to Washington, and Brevard in Florida, where Cape Canaveral is located.)

Although the Pentagon insists that it doesn't need any more B-2 bombers, Norman Dicks (D-Washington) and Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) don't care. Dicks-who's one of the largest recipients of military PAC money in the House-received over $10,000 from nine major B-2 contractors in the four months just before the battle to resurrect B-2 funding. Stevens got $37,000 between 1989 and 1994, making him one of the top ten recipients of PAC contributions from B-2 contractors. (Isn't it amazing how little politicians cost?)
If PAC money isn't enough, military lobbyists can always argue jobs. It didn't hurt funding for the B-2 that spending for it was spread across 88% of all congressional districts and all but two states.

Liberal California Representative Maxine Waters defended her vote to continue B-2 funding by candidly admitting that it was one of the few ways she knew to bring federal jobs to her district. (Since her district is South-Central Los Angeles, you can understand her desperation.)

There's no conceivable need for Seawolf submarines (which cost $2.4 billion apiece)- except for the votes in Connecticut, where it's built, and in surrounding states. That's why liberal New England senators like Ted Kennedy, John Kerry and George Mitchell supported it, as did Bill Clinton-who needed votes from those states-in his 1992 campaign.
Neither the Air Force nor the Navy wants any part of the V-22 Osprey assault plane, which the Bush administration tried in vain to kill. But it's supported by legislators in Texas and Pennsylvania-the two states that do the most contracting for it-and by Clinton, who...oh, you get the idea.

What about the jobs we'd lose? -- If new weapons systems are nothing more than make-work programs, they're really inefficient ones. A 1992 Congressional study estimated that shifting money from the Pentagon to state and local governments would create two jobs for every one it eliminates. Building weapons we don't need is so wasteful that the economy would probably be better off if we just paid people the same money to stay at home.

The Congressional Budget Office concluded that a billion dollars spent on successfully promoting arms exports creates 25,000 jobs, but if that same billion is spent on mass transit, it creates 30,000 jobs; on housing, 36,000 jobs; on education, 41,000 jobs; or on health care, 47,000 jobs.

Aside from the cost, using federal money to prop up military contractors creates a disincentive for them to convert to civilian products. Shifting Pentagon funds to urgently needed domestic uses would be good for both the US and the rest of the world. As President Eisenhower put it, "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed."

Pentagon boosters argue that military spending has already been slashed too far, since more than 800,000 military-related jobs have disappeared since 1990. But many of these layoffs were in nonmilitary divisions of the companies, and more than half of them were caused by the economy contracting in a recession, not by smaller Pentagon budgets-especially since they've dropped off only slightly from their all-time high of $304 billion (adjusted for inflation) in 1989.

Just eight companies-McDonnell Douglas, Lockheed, Martin Marietta, Boeing, General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and Hughes-were responsible for half of all military contractors' layoffs in 1993. Only 15% of Boeing's layoffs and a third of McDonnell Douglas' were related to military production. After the firings, the stocks of these eight companies rose by 20% to 140%, and the salaries of their CEOs soared.

The revolving door

Another reason for Pentagon waste and fraud is the revolving door between military contractors and government personnel. Before he was Secretary of Defense, Caspar Weinberger was a top executive at Bechtel, which does massive engineering projects for the Pentagon and foreign clients like Saudi Arabia. Before he was Secretary of State, George Shultz was president of Bechtel.

Before his days as a Navy felon, Melvyn Paisley worked for Boeing-as did his boss at the Pentagon, Navy Secretary John Lehman. Secretary of Defense William Perry and CIA Director John Deutch both did consulting work for Martin Marietta before they joined the Clinton administration. The list goes on and on.

Generals have an interest in keeping weapons contractors happy-at least if they want to sit on the boards of corporations after they retire. Contractors can use their connections at the Pentagon to find work there and, like Paisley, feed lucrative contracts to their friends in the private sector.

On both sides of the revolving door, militarists live in the lap of luxury. Nobody batted an eyelash when Paisley entertained contractors in staterooms on the Queen Elizabeth, nor is there ever much dismay when military aircraft are used, at a cost of tens of thousands of dollars an hour, to fly politicians, lobbyists and weapons contractors on pleasure trips.

Direct handouts

Still, personal perks don't cost us much compared to corporate perks. For example, when Lockheed and Martin Marietta merged to become Lockheed Martin, $92 million in bonuses-or "triggered compensation," as they prefer to call it-was handed out to top executives and members of the board. They expect the government to pick up $31 million of that.

John Deutch quietly reversed a 40-year ban on such compensation when he was at the Pentagon. The biggest bonus, $8.2 million, went to the new company's president, Norman Augustine, who Deutch and William Perry had done work for at Martin Marietta.

Both Deutch and Perry obtained waivers from an ethics regulation that prohibits Pentagon officials from dealing with people they formerly did business with untl a year has passed. (Up to 30,000 employees will lose their jobs as a result of this merger.)

Military contractors milk the government in other ways as well. It's common for the State Department to give foreign aid to brutal dictatorships like Indonesia and Guatemala, with the requirement that the money be used to buy US weapons. Each year this program results in the transfer of $5-7 billion from US taxpayers to US arms merchants (not to mention the murder of lots of innocent people in the countries involved).

The Pentagon has similar programs that not only provide subsidies to foreign countries to buy from US weapons suppliers but also help them negotiate the sale. In 1994, General Dynamics and Lockheed received a total of $1.9 billion in foreign military sales awards- 126,567% more than the $1.5 million they gave to candidates for federal offices in the
1994 elections. (As we've already remarked, politicians sure are a bargain.)

Thanks in large part to these Pentagon programs-on which we spend $5.4 billion a year, almost half our total foreign aid expenditure-the US is the largest arms supplier on earth, with 43% of the world trade. What's more, many of these loans are ultimately defaulted on or forgiven. Egypt, for example, was let off the hook for $7 billion in loans, as a reward for participating in the Gulf War...

How much military spending is waste?
Even if you accept the absurd two-war plan, lots of savings are still possible:

* We have more Trident missiles than we could ever use, and nobody to aim them at. But the Navy isn't happy with their old Tridents (currently funded at $787 million a year). They want to replace them with a newer version, even though both kinds of Tridents are likely to be eliminated under the next arms-control agreement, START lll.

* Although our 121 C-5 and 265 C-144 transport planes are perfectly adequate, the Pentagon wants to replace a bunch of them with 120 new C-17s, at a total cost of $45 billion.

The rationale for the F-22 fighter is especially weak. It was designed to achieve air superiority in the 1990s over the now-defunct Soviet Union. We already have 900 F-15s (which the GAO calls the best tactical aircraft in the world), and none of our real or potential enemies have more than a handful of planes that come anywhere close to matching its capabilities. That hasn't stopped the Pentagon from asking for 442 F-22s, at a total cost of $72 billion.

* Even a hawk like Barry Goldwater points out the waste involved in the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines each having its own air force. Both the Marines and the Army have light infantry divisions, and the Navy and the Air Force aren't satisfied with the same kind of satellites and cruise missiles-each has to have its own kind.

* The Pentagon keeps 100,000 troops in Europe and 70,000 in Korea and Japan. We spend $80 billion a year on NATO, $59 billion a year in South Korea and $48 billion a year in the Persian Gulf. In all of these cases, the countries we're supposedly defending have militaries that are better-equipped and much better-funded than their enemies'.

* As we've mentioned above, even the Pentagon doesn't want any more B-2 bombers, V-22 Osprey assault planes or additional Star Wars funds. The Navy doesn't want the

Seawolf submarine and admits it doesn't need another $3.5-billion nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. But try telling that to the companies that make those weapons, or to the politicians whose campaigns they fund.

By now it should be obvious that the "defense" budget isn't based on any rational calculation of what the defense of this country actually requires-it's based on what US arms manufacturers can get away with (almost anything, it turns out).

Attaching the word "defense" to this spending isn't just misleading-it's the complete opposite of the truth, since military waste and fraud make our country weaker, not stronger. The preposterously obese Pentagon budget is the single greatest threat there is to our national security.
It's not just wild-eyed radicals who feel this way:

* Lawrence Korb, a military planner under Reagan who's now with the Brookings Institution, says we could have the most overwhelmingly powerful military in the world for around $150 billion a year.

* In a report called Ending Overkill, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists laid out a detailed military budget that includes funding for a lot of programs we think are unnecessary (Star Wars, for example). Even so, its report calls for scaling down the military budget to $115 billion by the year 2000, and states that this would still give us a force "adequate to undertake six or eight Somalia-like operations at the same time, or to mount a force somewhat larger than the American part of Desert Storm."

* The Center for Defense Information (founded by retired generals and admirals) thinks we could get by quite nicely with about a million soldiers, instead of the 1.6 million we now have, and with a Pentagon budget of about $200 billion.

The average of those three estimates is $155 billion a year-quite a bit less than the $327 billion a year we actually spend. (And remember: that $327 billion doesn't include the $167 billion or more we lay out each year to service debt that's the result of past military programs. Unfortunately, there isn't much we can do about that past debt-except to cut down on present military budgets, so the problem doesn't keep getting worse.)

Subtracting $155 billion from $327 billion gives us a figure for current military waste and fraud of $172 billion a year-almost $500 million a day-virtually all of which goes to large corporations and super-rich individuals. (Sure, some of it pays for ordinary people's salaries, but they'd also be earning money if they were doing something useful.) Half a billion dollars a day could buy a lot of medical care, or fill a lot of potholes, or...you name it. After all, it's your money.

Excerpted from, Take The Rich Off Welfare, by Mark Zepezauer. Respectfully, very good book.

There is an updated version I wish to read. We are paying for the bullshit mentioned, though.

[kcchiefs6465]

I know it seems a wall of text but I'd ask everyone to read it all.

The waste has only grown.

[Origanalist]

I know it seems a wall of text but I'd ask everyone to read it all.

The waste has only grown.

It's not your fault that it's a wall of text. If everything was included it would be a volume that dwarfed the Encyclopedia Britannica.

[thoughtomator]

More for the waste list - $37 billion for the LCS, which lacks the firepower to fill the role it was intended to fill.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/ships-costing-u-s---37-billion-lack-firepower--navy-told-154342721.html

[TheGrinch]

Alabama Watermelon Queen sounds like a rocking name for a band.... or a really racist one, not sure....

[Acala]

It would be much easier to list government spending that was NOT waste.

[phill4paul]

How about Congressional perks?

http://realitybloger.wordpress.com/2011/04/04/the-senate-how-much-does-it-cost/



“Senate Hair Care Revolving Fund”?

Yep… The Federal Government has a fund that was created specifically for the hair care of its Senators! For fiscal year 2010, $33,387 was used to outlay this expense. The word outlay simply means “to spend, an amount expended, paid expenditures”.

There are only 100 Senators – 2 representing each of the 50 states.

This means that on each senator $333.87 in taxpayer money was spent to keep them looking sharp for the cameras, hairpieces and all!

But then, I guess that’s about what you’d expect from a fake Hollywood production like this.

But even more importantly, this “revolving fund” has a balance, which is appropriated solely for this Senatorial hair care. That fund balance, which is invested and gains each year, is $261,117.19. That represents a gain for this fund over fiscal year 2009 of about $36,000.

So we have a quarter of a million dollars designated for Senatorial hair care while many U.S. citizens live in destitute tent cities. It’s kinda funny… and kinda not.

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Farther down the list we have the “Senate Restaurant Fund”, listed as a “Public Enterprise Fund”.

The Senators tapped this fund for $72,370.12 for fiscal year 2010. This left a remaining balance in the “Senate Restaurant Fund” of $49,859.53.

That adds up to about $723.70 per Senator.

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The taxpayers also paid $123,856.74 towards the “Senate Health And Fitness Facility, Architect Of The Capitol”. This left an account balance of $256,380.37.

So taxpayer funded Senatorial gym memberships apparently cost $1,238.56 for each member of the Senate.

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The “Official Mail Costs, Senate” column states that the Federal Government appropriated $300,000 to this cost, adding to the existing balance already appropriated for Senate mailing services of $345,430.58. And after $115,546.71 of this money was actually used for mail, $161,082.59 was “withdrawn or used for other transactions”, the fund balance was left for fiscal year 2010 at $368,801.28 – a gain of a bit more than $22,000.

This represents $2,766.29 per senator for 2010.

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How about the “Senate Gift Shop Revolving Fund, Senate”?

Well, this fund has $2,939,413.53 within it. What this taxpayer money is used for is unclear, but these guys managed to spend $166,673.26 over fiscal year 2010.

This represents $1,666.73 per Senator.

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The “Senate Photographic Studio Revolving Fund, Senate” spent $65,915.24 for the year and shows an ending balance of $798,690.53

There’s $659.15 per Senator.

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The “Senate Recording Studio Revolving Fund, Senate” spent $22,722.52, leaving a fund balance of $1,945,771.10.

That’s $227.22 per Senator spent in 2010.

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The “Contingent Expenses, Stationery (paper), Revolving Fund, Senate” spent $298,821.41, leaving a fund balance of $1,078,465.74.

That’s $2988.21 per Senator.


Much more at link.

[kcchiefs6465]

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