Did you type that with a straight face? Up thread, a cigarette tax is not a tax. But, Paul Ryan agreeing to raise the TSA tax IS a tax.
Which is it?
The TSA tax is on flyers but is going into the general fund, no one is addressing the expanding budget at the TSA which has more than doubled since 2002 (when the TSA was formed) while flying is actually down due to the economy... this is my issue... with both parties. There is too much waste, fraud and abuse in their spending and yet they choose to raise more taxes and cut medical payments to doctors for treating patients and still they fund a bloated TSA, NSA, IRS, Education..........
and worse of all they spend a lot more than 2.3 billion a year on waste like this list - so when they stop all the B.S. spending then talk to me about raising taxes or fees.........
How long can a shrimp run on a treadmill?Really? Do we need to spend $3 million just to watch shrimps run on a treadmill? Actually, yes, if we want to begin to understand the effects of bacteria on mobility, according to National Science Foundation spokeswoman Maria Zacharias.
Does playing FarmVille on Facebook help people to make friends and keep them?FarmVille is a simulation game on Facebook that allows users to create a virtual farm, grow and harvest crops, trade and exchange seeds with other farmers. At first glance it seems ludicrous that $315,000 would be spent on attempting to study the real social aspects of an online game.
How do you ride a bike?According to the Senator's report, $300,000 was spent in 2009 helping scientists study how humans ride bicycles.
Study of Study of Studies
Two years after the Pentagon launched their study of studies, Congress learned that the project was still ongoing so they asked the General Accounting Office to review the Pentagon’s results. The GAO discovered that the Pentagon’s study of studies had only managed to review nine studies. When the GAO asked to see copies of the reviews, the Pentagon could only locate three of the nine study reviews. Of the reviews the GAO were able to obtain, they determined that they were poorly conducted and left out a number of important cost factors such as manpower involved.
So taxpayer dollars were used to pay for a study of studies that was poorly conducted and two-thirds of the results are missing. Then we also paid for a study that studied the study of studies which only tells that the study of studies was a huge waste of taxpayer dollars.
Why Chimps Throw Poop…
the government blew $592,000 on a study last year to figure out why chimpanzees throw poop.
Exporting Elmo:
The U.S. Agency for International Development provided $10 million to a Pakistani arts organization to adapt "Sesame Street" for Pakistani toddlers. The money will also help pay for the creation of 130 episodes of the show.
Dragon Robots for Preschoolers:
The National Science Foundation spent $131,000 on robot dragons designed to mimic human responses to help teach preschoolers language skills. Apparently interaction with real humans was deemed inadequate.
Virtual Mummies:
Thanks to a $25,000 federal grant, visitors to the Milwaukee Public Museum will now be able to experience a "3-D high-definition, full-color true holographic or holographic-like exhibit of a virtual mummy unwrapping."
Dead Man's Party:
Those who complain federal employment benefits are already too generous won't be pleased to learn that many government workers keep receiving payments long after they've died. The Inspector General for the U.S. Office of Personnel Management says "the amount of post-death improper payments is consistently $100-$150 million annually, totaling over $601 million in the last five years."
Cowboy Poetry:
It's hard to recall John Wayne reciting verse in any of the many Westerns he made, but cowboy poetry is a big enough phenomenon to have its own annual celebration. And this year taxpayers helped pay for it courtesy of a $50,000 contribution from the U.S. government.
Promiscuous Quail:
The National Institute of Health gave the University of Kentucky $176,000 to determine if Japanese quail are more likely to have sex when high on cocaine. The study is scheduled to last through 2015.
Happiness is ... Social Media:
Another National Science Foundation grant for $198,000 paid for a University of California-Riverside study of "motivations, expectations and goal pursuit in social media." Among the questions the study seeks to answer: "Do unhappy people spend more time on Twitter or Facebook?"
Guilty Pleasure:
The federal government gave the Hawaii Department of Agriculture $50,000 to help pay for the 2nd Annual Hawaiian Chocolate Festival. The goal is to "highlight the culinary talents and products specifically linked to Hawaii's chocolate industry."
O Christmas Tree:
The U.S. government spent $74,000 last year to help the state of Michigan "increase awareness about the role Michigan plays in the production of trees and poinsettias." Michigan's $40 million Christmas tree industry already ranks third in the nation.
High on Pizza:
A private company was given $484,000 by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to build a Mellow Mushroom pizzeria in Arlington, TX. Mellow Mushroom is a national chain known for its use of hippie and drug themes.
Tips for India:
The National Science Foundation wants to help politicians in India do a better job. So it is awarded a $426,000 grant for research to determine the effectiveness of communications to citizens from officeholders. The U.S. sent $126 million in aid to India last year, even though it is one of the fastest growing economies in the world.
Art for Italians:
The State Department contributed $350,000 for the United States to be part of the 54th International Art Exhibition in Venice, Italy. No word on how much the exhibit enhanced U.S. international relations.
Jobs for Barbados:
The mixed success the government has had creating jobs here in America did not discourage the U.S. Agency for International Development from spending $1.35 million on an "entrepreneurship initiative" for the Caribbean island nation of Barbados. The U.S. unemployment rate has been over 8% for three years.
Video Game Powerups:
A video game promotional organization in Massachusetts landed $100,000 to help developers create intellectual property and help businesses get access to capital. Video game development is a $2 billion industry in Massachusetts.
What Were They Smoking:
The Virginia Commonwealth University received $55,000 in 2011 (part of a larger $170,000 grant) to study changes in the hookah smoking habits of students in the nation of Jordan. Among other things, the study sought to answer the question: "How many Jordanian students believe that water pipe tobacco smoking is more harmful than cigarettes smoking?" (Answer: 62.2 percent).
Chinese Puzzle:
The Chinese economy is second only to that of the United States. And China holds billions of dollars in U.S. debt. So the U.S. government sent $17.8 million in aid to China last year to improve the Asian giant's social services and clean up its environment. That makes sense, right?
Do You Believe in Magic:
Did you know there is an American Museum of Magic in Marshall, MI? Well, the magic museum made $147,000 of your tax dollars disappear last year. The purpose of the federal largesse was to help the museum "better understand its various audiences and their potential interest in the history of magic entertainment."
Little Green Menus:
NASA spends $1 million a year on developing recipes for foods which astronauts could prepare while visiting Mars, even though the agency has no plans to go there any time soon. But just in case NASA changes its mind someday, it wants to ensure that astronauts on Mars don't experience "menu fatigue."
Why Fruit Flies Fall in Love:
The National Institutes of Health spent $939,771 on research that has discovered male fruit flies are more sexually attracted to younger female fruit flies. "Video of the encounter," the scientists wrote, "showed that the male was much more attracted to the young fly."
and more............ pretty soon you exceed the 23 billion per year...... without raising one cent in revenue from taxpayers.
The U.S. government is spending $750,000 on a new soccer field for detainees held at Guantanamo Bay.
The Obama administration plans to spend between 16 and 20 million dollars helping students from Indonesia get master’s degrees.
The U.S. government spent $200,000 on “a tattoo removal program” in Mission Hills, California.
The federal government has shelled out $3 million to researchers at the University of California at Irvine to fund their research on video games such as World of Warcraft. Wouldn’t we all love to have a “research job” like that?
The Department of Health and Human Services plans to spend $500 million on a program that will, among other things, seek to solve the problem of 5-year-old children that “can’t sit still” in a kindergarten classroom.
Fannie Mae is about to ask the federal government for another $4.6 billion bailout, and it will almost certainly get it. The federal government spent 30 million dollars on a program that was designed to help Pakistani farmers produce more mangos.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture gave researchers at the University of New Hampshire $700,000 to study methane gas emissions from dairy cows.
According to USA Today, 13 different government agencies “fund 209 different science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education programs — and 173 of those programs overlap with at least one other program.”
A total of $615,000 was given to the University of California at Santa Cruz to digitize photos, T-shirts and concert tickets belonging to the Grateful Dead.China lends us more money than any other foreign nation, but that didn’t stop our government from spending 17.8 million dollars on social and environmental programs for China.
The U.S. government spent 2.6 million dollars to train Chinese prostitutes to drink responsibly.
One professor at Stanford University was given $239,100 to study how Americans use the Internet to find love.
The U.S. Postal Service spent $13,500 on a single dinner at Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse.The National Science Foundation once spent $216,000 to study whether or not politicians “gain or lose support by taking ambiguous positions”.
A total of $1.8 million was spent on a “museum of neon signs” in Las Vegas, Nevada.
The federal government spends 25 billion dollars a year maintaining federal buildings that are either unused or totally vacant.U.S. farmers are given a total of $2 billion each year for not farming their land.
The U.S. government handed one Tennessee library $5,000 for the purpose of hosting a series of video game parties.
A few years ago the government spent $123,050 on a Mother’s Day Shrine in Grafton, West Virginia. It turns out that Grafton only has a population of a little more than 5,000 people.
One professor at Dartmouth University was given $137,530 to create a “recession-themed” video game entitled “Layoff”.
According to the Heritage Foundation, the U.S. military spent “$998,798 shipping two 19-cent washers from South Carolina to Texas and $293,451 sending an 89-cent washer from South Carolina to Florida”.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture shelled out $30,000 to a group of farmers to develop a tourist-friendly database of farms that host guests for overnight “haycations”.
The National Institutes of Health paid researchers $400,000 to find out why gay men in Argentina engage in risky sexual behavior when they are drunk.
The National Institutes of Health also once spent $442,340 to study the behavior of male prostitutes in Vietnam.
The National Institutes of Health loves to spend our tax money on really bizarre things. The NIH once spent $800,000 in “stimulus funds” to study the impact of a “genital-washing program” on men in South Africa.
According to the Washington Post, 1,271 different government organizations work on government programs related to counterterrorism and homeland security.
The U.S. government spent $100,000 on a “Celebrity Chef Fruit Promotion Road Show in Indonesia”.
The feds once gave Alaska Airlines $500,000 “to paint a Chinook salmon” on the side of a Boeing 737.