US senators release a $1 trillion list of government “waste”.

As part of his “personal tradition,” Republican Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky released his tenth annual “holiday report” just before Christmas, listing dozens of wasteful government expenditures. Paul stated that the U.S. government spends over $1.6 trillion of taxpayer money on “unnecessary, objectionable, and even absurd” spending, and he called for the newly established Department of Government Efficiency to address this issue as soon as it becomes operational. According to reports from the New York Post, Fox News, and other media outlets, Paul believes that allocating more money to federal agencies will only lead to lower efficiency. In his report, he wrote, “This year, I will highlight the staggering $160,831,332,962.612 in spending, which means the government has wasted over $1.6 trillion. This includes funding drag queen figure skating shows, spending $12 million to build a large puck stadium in Las Vegas, and allocating $4,840,082 to ‘Ukrainian influencers.'” The report first lists several government-supported, bizarre research projects, such as spending $410,000 at New York University to study whether “mice injected with drugs become happier.” The National Endowment for the Arts spent $10,000 to support a supposedly climate-related “drag queen figure skating show.” This “waste list” also includes spending $10 billion to lease, renovate, and maintain nearly vacant government-owned properties, and spending $365,000 to promote circus performances in parks across the country. The report also listed several “non-essential expenditures” by the US government overseas, including $4.8 million to support influential “Ukrainian influencers,” $873,000 to support Jordan’s film industry, $345,000 to promote football in the Middle East under the guise of “combating terrorism,” and $20 million to produce an educational program similar to the American children’s puppet show “Sesame Street” for Iraq. Paul called on the Department of Government Efficiency, co-led by American entrepreneurs Elon Musk and Ramaswamy, to take immediate action to address this issue. Musk also shared Paul’s report on the social media platform X. He has repeatedly warned that the US will soon go bankrupt if government spending is not controlled. Last week, the official account of the Department of Government Efficiency posted on X with a post titled “What is the US government doing with taxpayers’ money?”, listing several questionable government spending projects, such as spending $6.97 million to research a smart toilet that can “recognize anal prints,” spending $118,000 to research whether a metal replica of the Marvel Comics character Thanos would snap his fingers, and spending $75,000 to research lizard survival strategies during hurricanes.