The total annual federal spending topped $1 trillion for the first time only a generation ago? Today, Washington spends five times as much. The national debt is now more than $34 trillion, and rising fast. Interest on the debt is one of the largest single items in the budget and is on track to hit $1 trillion in the next year or so. The numbers are almost as incomprehensible as Washington’s indifference to the danger they pose.
Kentucky Senator Rand Paul released a report on wasteful government spending last month, and here are some interesting tidbits…
1) $659 Billion for Interest on the National Debt
The national debt continues to skyrocket, from roughly $30 trillion last year to roughly $34 trillion today. One of the many problems with carrying such a heavy debt burden is the sheer volume of money that needs to be spent on interest. As Senator Paul’s report highlights, the U.S. Department of the Treasury spent $659 billion(!) in Fiscal Year 2023 just on interest payments.
What’s worse, there seems to be no end in sight. “The Congressional Budget Office predicts that we will add an average of $2 trillion in debt annually for the next decade,” the report notes. “The U.S. government will add over $5 billion of debt every single day for the next ten years. We borrow over $200 million every hour, we borrow $3 million every minute, and we borrow $60,000 every second.”
2) $6 Million to Boost Egyptian Tourism
It is puzzling how the concept of foreign aid ever got off the ground. One can at least understand the reasoning for spending taxpayer money on local schools, roads, and the like, even if you disagree. But how on earth did they sell foreign aid to taxpayers? “Ok, here’s the deal. We’re going to take your money without your consent, and then we’re going to send it to our friends in a far-away country. There’s pretty much nothing in it for you, dear taxpayers.”
Um…thanks?
In just the latest example, the federal government spent $6 million to boost tourism—yes, tourism—in Egypt last year. “The U.S. has spent over $100 million on Egyptian tourism so far,” the report notes. “What’s next – rebuilding the pyramids? Apparently, Congress and the agencies it funds think our treasury is a bottomless pit.”
3) Training DHS Employees to Be Their ‘Authentic & Best Selves’
The Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has been pursuing some…creative training programs as of late. In a federally funded workshop last year, CISA employees focused on “effective strategies to build and sustain psychological safety that allows individuals to show up to work as their authentic and best selves.” The workshop was part of a 5-year “diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA)” strategic plan.
“Ironically, the workshop coincided with CISA’s efforts to suppress protected speech on social media platforms during the COVID-19 pandemic,” Paul notes. “Even I was censored at the behest of our government speech minders. And all while I thought I was being my best self.”
4) $38 Million to Dead People
According to a special task force for tracking COVID payments from the federal government, $38 million went to people who were known to be dead in 2023. In fact, $1.3 million of that money went to 30 individuals who had been dead for at least a year.
COVID-relief funding has of course been rife with fraud and mismanagement since the beginning. You’d think politicians would have learned their lesson by now. Then again, it’s not like it’s their money on the line, so why should they care? What are taxpayers going to do, take their money to a competing relief organization?
5) $8,395 for a Lobster Tank
The Department of Defense pays for a lot of tanks, but a $8,395 lobster tank probably isn’t what taxpayers have in mind when they picture a tank expenditure. Yet this is exactly what was purchased last year by the DOD, presumably to improve the diet of military personnel.
What’s concerning about this purchase is not so much the dollar figure itself but what it represents. No doubt countless other purchases like this take place every day in the military. And all those luxuries really add up.
6) Two Graphic Novels Combating ‘Disinformation’
In addition to their DEIA initiative, CISA has been hard at work creating not one, but two graphic novels about “disinformation” as part of their “Resilience Series.” The first one covers foreign interference in elections. The second covers COVID vaccines. “There is nothing comical about wasting taxpayer money to justify censorship of constitutionally protected speech,” Paul notes in his report.
7) $200 Million to Famous Music Artists from the ‘Small Business’ Administration
Through the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant program, the Small Business Administration (SBA) funneled $200 million to some of the biggest names in entertainment. “So-called ‘small business owners,’ such as Post Malone, Lil Wayne, Chris Brown, and Smashing Pumpkins, received up to $10 million each,” the report notes. “Even Nickelback received $2 million.”
The purpose of the program was to provide financial relief to small entertainment businesses during the pandemic shutdowns. But apparently, the SBA has a hard time defining the word small.
Of course, even the money that did go to genuinely small businesses arguably counts as government waste, as I’ve explained elsewhere.
The Right Way to Reduce Government Waste
The 19th-century English polymath Herbert Spencer was well acquainted with government waste, and he frequently called it out in his writings. Some of his most powerful critiques of bureaucratic largesse can be found in his 1853 essay Over-legislation. Consider the following passages:
Between these law-made agencies and the spontaneously-formed ones, who then can hesitate? The one class are slow, stupid, extravagant, unadaptive, corrupt, and obstructive: can any point out in the other, vices that balance these? It is true that trade has its dishonesties, speculation its follies. These are evils inevitably entailed by the existing imperfections of humanity. It is equally true, however, that these imperfections of humanity are shared by State-functionaries; and that being unchecked in them by the same stern discipline, they grow to far worse results.…
As Spencer points out, the problem is not so much the people, but the system. Government waste does not exist for lack of good managers, but for lack of good incentives.
Given a race of men having a certain proclivity to misconduct… the question is, whether a society of these men shall be so organized that ill-conduct directly brings punishment, or whether it shall be so organized that punishment is but remotely contingent on ill-conduct? Which will be the most healthful community—that in which agents who perform their functions badly, immediately suffer by the withdrawal of public patronage; or that in which such agents can be made to suffer only through an apparatus of meetings, petitions, polling-booths, parliamentary divisions, cabinet-councils, and red-tape documents? Is it not an absurdly utopian hope that men will behave better when correction is far removed and uncertain than when it is near at hand and inevitable? Yet this is the hope which most political schemers unconsciously cherish…
He’s forgetting the money Joe Biden is using to build infrastructure in Africa:
Remarks by President Biden Before Marine One Departure
South Lawn
(December 23, 2023)
Q Do you have any message for Africa?
THE PRESIDENT: For whom?
Q For Africa.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, it has a great future. We’re going to continue to work with Africa to build the infrastructure and to grow that continent.
*******************************
And then we had Joe’s “FACT SHEET: President Biden Announces New Initiatives at COP27 to Strengthen U.S. Leadership in Tackling Climate” on November 11, 2022, where we had as follows:
Today at the 27th U.N. Climate Conference (COP27), President Biden will announce new initiatives to strengthen U.S. leadership tackling the climate crisis and galvanize global action and commitments.
President Biden will demonstrate that the United States is following through on its existing commitments and initiatives while also accelerating new and expanded domestic and global efforts.
As President Biden said at last year’s COP in Glasgow, this is a decisive decade – and the United States is acting to lead a clean energy future that leverages market forces, technological innovation, and investments to tackle the climate crisis.
The initiatives the President is announcing today also reflect the global imperative to support vulnerable developing country partners in building resilience to a changing climate, helping them cope with a problem they did not create.
In less than 18 months, President Biden has renewed United States leadership in the fight against climate change.
The President is delivering on his Day One promises, positioning the United States to achieve our ambitious climate goals.
The initiatives the President is announcing and that the U.S. delegation will highlight throughout COP27 include:
Bolstering Global Climate Resilience – including doubling the U.S. pledge to the Adaptation Fund to $100 million and announcing over $150 million in new support to accelerate the President’s Emergency Plan for Adaptation and Resilience (PREPARE) efforts across Africa.
Accelerating Global Climate Action – including launching a new initiative to support Egypt in deploying 10 GW of new wind and solar energy while decommissioning five GW of inefficient natural gas generation.
The comprehensive list of announcements by the U.S. delegation at COP27 includes:
BOLSTERING GLOBAL CLIMATE RESILIENCE:
President Biden announced additional efforts to further accelerate the implementation of his Emergency Plan for Adaptation and Resilience (PREPARE), which aims to help more than half a billion people in developing countries adapt to and manage the impacts of climate change this decade.
Accelerating Adaptation in Africa – President Biden announced over $150 million to accelerate PREPARE’s work across the continent, in support of the Adaptation in Africa initiative he and President El-Sisi announced in June.
This includes U.S. support for:
Expanding access to early-warning systems for all of Africa – According to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, better early-warning systems and adaptation can cut the number of people who need emergency assistance in half by 2030 — and from 200 million to just 10 million by 2050.
Today, President Biden announced new U.S. support to accelerate these efforts, including through a $13.6 million contribution to the Systematic Observations Financing Facility that will help fill weather, water, and climate observation gaps in Africa.
The United States will also invest $15 million to support the co-development and deployment of early-warning systems in Africa, leveraging the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)’s long-standing relationships with national and regional weather services across Africa.
Building the capacity of African decision makers of today and tomorrow to accelerate adaptation across the continent for years to come – This includes contributing $10 million to support the launch of a new adaptation center in Egypt – the Cairo Center for Learning and Excellence on Adaptation and Resilience, announced by Egypt, which will build adaptation capacity across the African continent.
As part of our support for the Cairo Center, we are also working with African universities and central ministries to raise awareness of climate risk and strengthen capacity to apply adaptation solutions to manage those risks, especially when it comes to fiscal policy, budgeting and planning.
Supporting locally-led efforts to adapt to climate impacts – This includes an additional $3.5 million in support for the Least Developed Countries Initiative for Effective Adaptation & Resilience, which is helping African countries like Uganda, Malawi, Gambia, and Burkina Faso to enhance access to adaptation finance for the most vulnerable.
Supporting Climate Affected Vulnerable Migrants – The United States
ACCELERATING GLOBAL CLIMATE ACTION:
President Biden believes that tackling the climate crisis and keeping the 1.5-degree C temperature goal within reach requires “all hands on deck” – demanding the mobilization of local, state, and national governments, the private sector, and philanthropies.
At COP27, President Biden and his Administration announced new initiatives to advance this objective, including:
Accelerating Egypt’s Clean Energy Economy, Enhancing Climate Ambition, and Supporting Energy Security – Germany and the United States announced over $250 million in resources to unlock $10 billion in commercial investment to support Egypt’s clean energy economy.
CATALYZING INVESTMENT AT THE SCALE REQUIRED TO TACKLE THE CLIMATE CRISIS
The United States is committed to not only meeting President Biden’s ambitious goal to quadruple U.S. climate finance to over $11 billion a year and working with other countries to meet the goal of mobilizing $100 billion, but also to using public finance in new and innovative ways to unlock the much larger pools of capital that will be required to tackle the climate crisis.
These efforts are in direct support of the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment.
These efforts include:
Launching “Climate Finance +” – The U.S. Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) and USAID are collaborating to accelerate the use of innovative finance mechanisms that aim to leverage billions in new public and private investment in low and lower-middle income countries. This Climate Finance + effort will support potential green bonds and other cli
Investing over $2.3 billion in Innovative Financing for Climate in 2022 through the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation – The U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) announced in Fiscal Year (FY) 2022 it invested more than $2.3 billion to combat the climate crisis through mitigation and resilience projects that have a positive developmental impact.
ENGAGING ALL OF SOCIETY IN TACKLING THE CLIMATE CRISIS:
President Biden believes that tackling the climate crisis must take an inclusive approach, engaging all members of society.
At COP27, the United States announced new initiatives to advance this objective, including:
Launching the Climate Gender Equity Fund – With initial seed funding of $6 million, USAID is co-launching a new Climate Gender Equity Fund in, partnership with Amazon, which will leverage private sector contributions to help provide women climate leaders with technical skills, networks, and capital to develop and scale climate solutions.
The Fund is enabled by USAID’s commitment to gender-responsive climate action, including its allocating more than $21 million from the Gender Equity and Equality Action (GEEA) Fund, surpassing its $14 million COP26 commitment.
Investing in Climate Leadership for Egyptian Women – USAID is spurring climate action by investing in education and skills building for women and youth.
USAID has made a $23 million initial investment in a new nine-year program that aims to build a more inclusive Egyptian workforce, with an emphasis on sectors with the potential to contribute to climate goals such as environment and energy.