Want To See How The Government Wastes Your Tax Dollars?
We all know that the government tends to spend a lot of our tax dollars unwisely, but just HOW bad is it? The people over at Citizens Against Government Waste have just released their 2007 PIG Book, which is an annual compilation of the pork-barrel projects in the federal budget. This years book has 2,658 pork projects in the Defense and Homeland Security Appropriations Acts, at a cost of $13.2 billion…to your wallet!
Some interesting “projects” from this years book include:
$4,500,000 for chitosan bandage component which utilizes natural compounds found in shrimp heads
$9,500,000 for an Extended ColdWeather Clothing System
$59,000,000 for medical research projects ranging from cancer to diabetes to gynecological disease. As important as this research may be, there is no mention as to why these programs should receive money from the Department of Defense. One program which weighs heavily on taxpayers in this category is $1.35 million for the “Obesity in the Military Research Program.”
$5,000,000 added in the House for alcohol breath testers (Jeez, how many of these did they need in the House?)
And my personal favorite, $1,000,000 added in the House for the Allen Telescope Array in Mountain View, Calif. This “alien” project is part of SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence). SETI describes the telescope as “dedicated to astronomical and simultaneous search for extra-terrestrial intelligence observations.” No word on how it will help defend the world against an alien invasion.
You can download the entire PDF of the 2007 PIG Book here, but beware, it might just make you kind of mad that you pay taxes for this crap. Police, Fire, Schools and National Defense are one thing….but random bullshit projects are another.
technorati tags: CAGW, Government, waste, tax, dollars
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Ellen | Mar 8, 2007 | Reply
I wouldn’t be able to read that without getting absolutely steamed, I flat guarantee you.
On the other hand, I sort of wonder if that’s where the money is actually going, or if there are some crazy science-fiction-show level projects getting funded, and some committee somewhere is cackling madly while trying to think of the most bizarre things that could possibly be funded (”Mr. Congressman, sir, I know how we can mask the Stargate Project-just tell the taxpayers we’re researching a way to make bandages made out of SHRIMPS!”). Yeah, I watch too much bad SciFi TV.
david | Mar 8, 2007 | Reply
I agree Ellen, knowing this govt, I would not be surprised at all. In fact, the CAGW actually says this was a “good” year…