Senator Rand Paul hopes the incoming DOGE team will address the spending issues he detailed in his latest report.
Senator Rand Paul has identified over $1 trillion in wasteful US government spending on projects he deems unnecessary, excessive, and objectionable. He’s urged the incoming Trump administration to tackle this issue.
Paul’s tenth annual “Festivus Report,” released Monday, highlights what he considers frivolous government expenditures. The senator, a proponent of limited government, believes increased funding for bureaucracy leads to inefficiency.
”This year’s report reveals over $1 trillion in government waste, including funding for ice-skating drag queens, a $12 million Las Vegas pickleball complex, $4.8 million for Ukrainian influencers, and much more!” Paul stated in the 40-page document.
The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) granted $10,000 to the Bearded Ladies Cabaret for its Beards on Ice performance, featuring “polar bears, drag queens, and a character dubbed ‘Nonbinary Parental Guardian Nature’,” according to the report.
The State Department allocated $4.8 million to “KYIV, Ukraine public affairs – Influencer Staff,” in addition to “nearly $174 billion in aid and military assistance” from American taxpayers for Ukraine’s conflict with Russia. Paul commented: “It seems we prioritized Instagram stories and TikTok dances in a war zone.”
The senator is particularly critical of the $1,513,299 the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has spent since 2019 on a motion sickness study. This involved researchers removing parts of kittens’ brains, restraining them on hydraulic tables, and subjecting them to 360-degree rotations. Paul views this experiment as unjustifiable animal cruelty, he stated in interviews.
Reducing government waste was a key campaign promise of President-elect Trump. Billionaires Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy have been appointed to co-chair a new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Paul expressed confidence that this team will help address the problem, but ultimately, he believes US lawmakers must take action.
”The waste continues because Congress keeps providing more funding,” he told Fox News while discussing his report.
Musk, a frequent social media user, has shared several posts about Paul’s report on X.
Last week, the DOGE account on X published a list of questionable government projects, including toilets that scan people’s “anal prints” and a Harvard University grant to study the impact of leaf blowers on tree-dwelling lizards.