EDITORIAL: The airing of grievances, Washington style

In the spirit of Frank Costanza and the airing of grievances — “I’ve got a lot of problems with you people! And now you’re gonna hear about it!” — comes Sen. Rand Paul with his annual Festivus Report, highlighting examples of government waste.

The Kentucky Republican follows in the honorable tradition of the late Sen. William Proxmire’s monthly Golden Fleece Award in the 1970s and ’80s and, more recently, the yearly publication of “The Wastebook” by former Sen. Tom Coburn.

Is anyone in the Beltway paying attention? It doesn’t appear so. The nation began 2023 carrying about $30 trillion in debt. “Shockingly, in one short year,” Sen. Paul laments, “the career politicians and bureaucrats in Washington have managed to approach $34 trillion in debt, without so much as a second thought.”

In the latest edition of the Festivus Report, Sen. Paul identifies $900 billion of dubious federal expenditures. Your tax dollars at work — or not.

■ Congress used an AI program as part of its efforts to identify those who applied to the Small Business Administration for loans through the pandemic-era Paycheck Protection Program. The program lost millions to fraudsters — in part because the high-tech verification system did not catch images of dolls that crooks downloaded as proof of their identity.

■ The U.S. Agency for International Development spent $6 million to promote tourism in Egypt. The agency defended the expenditure as a “value investment in sustainable integrated tourism.” So far, Sen. Paul reports, American taxpayers have spent more than $100 million on this program to boost Egypt’s visitor volume.

■ The National Institutes of Health awarded a $2.7 million grant to a Georgia Tech researcher who later sub-granted the money to scientists in Russia who used it to study cats walking on treadmills.

■ The Department of Defense potentially ruined $89 million in vehicle engines by improperly storing them outside for three years. The department did the same thing, an audit found, with 135 hydraulic transmissions valued at $12.6 million.

■ A COVID-related program intended to help struggling artists and small entertainment businesses survive provided millions of dollars to wealthier entertainers, including Lil Wayne, Chris Brown, Usher, the Smashing Pumpkins and Nickelback.

■ The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases spent almost $500,000 in tax dollars to study the forced feminization of male rhesus macaques. This was an effort to address “social injustices” in the transgender community, Sen. Paul reports.

■ The Cybersecurity Infrastructure Security Agency (under the Department of Homeland Security) held a federal workshop at which agency employees were taught “effective strategies to build and sustain psychological safety that allows individuals to show up to work as their authentic and best selves.”

There are hundreds of other examples of Washington fiscal irresponsibility, of course, including some involving gambling monkeys, summer dog walkers and pandemic “misinformation.”

“No matter how much money the government has already wasted, politicians keep demanding even more,” Sen. Paul explains. “As always, taking the path to fiscal responsibility is often a lonely journey.” Indeed, how much longer will voters tolerate this rush toward the fiscal abyss?

Now on to the feats of strength!