Ice-skating drag queens and Ukrainian influencers included in $1trn US ‘waste list’
Over $1 trillion in US taxpayer money has been frittered away on unnecessary, crazy, and outright repulsive projects, Senator Rand Paul believes. The libertarian-leaning lawmaker has urged the future administration of President-elect Donald Trump to tackle the problem.
On Monday, Paul published his tenth annual ‘Festivus Report’, which outlined what he considers frivolous government spending. The senator advocates small government, since he believes that giving bureaucrats more funds inevitably increases inefficiency.
”This year, I am highlighting a whopping $1,008,313,329,626.12. That’s over $1 trillion in government waste, including things like ice-skating drag queens, a $12 Million Las Vegas pickleball complex, $4,840,082 on Ukrainian influencers, and more!” Paul said in the 40-page document.
The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) awarded the Bearded Ladies Cabaret a $10,000 grant 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 spent $4.8 million on “KYIV, Ukraine public affairs – Influencer Staff” on top of “nearly $174 billion in aid and military assistance” from American taxpayers for Ukraine’s fight against Russia. Paul remarked: “Apparently, what we really need in a war zone are more Instagram stories and TikTok dances.”
The senator seems particularly miffed by $1,513,299 that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has spent since 2019 on a study of motion sickness. It involved researchers removing parts of kittens’ brains, strapping them to hydraulic tables and rocking them 360 degrees. Paul considers the experiment an unjustifiable form of animal cruelty, he said in interviews.
Curbing government waste was one of Trump’s major promises on the campaign trail. Billionaires Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy have been tapped to co-chair a new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in the incoming administration. Paul said he is counting on the team to help address the problem, but ultimately US lawmakers are the ones who must act.
”Why is there more waste? Because idiots in the Congress keep giving them more money,” he told Fox News when discussing his report.
Musk, an avid social media user, has shared several posts about Paul’s new report on his X account.
Last week, the DOGE account on the same platform released a short list of questionable government projects, such as toilets scanning people’s “anal prints” and a grant to Harvard University to study the effect of leaf blowers on lizards in trees.
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US House speaker vows to dismantle ‘deep state’
US House Speaker Mike Johnson has vowed to dismantle the “deep state” as part of sweeping reforms to be enacted in 2025, pledging to prioritize tax cuts, border security and deregulation.
In an appearance on Fox News, Johnson, who was re-elected as speaker of the House in November 2024, emphasized that Republicans are prepared to act quickly on their agenda in the new Congress.
“We’ve made a lot of campaign promises. And we’re going to be dismantling the deep state all along the way,” he said in the interview on the show Sunday Morning Futures.
Central to the Republican plan is the prevention of what Johnson described as the “largest tax increase in US history,” set to occur if the 2017 tax cuts are not extended by the end of the year.
He promised to revive the economy by extending those cuts, eliminating taxes on Social Security benefits and tips, and increasing the cap on state and local tax deductions. The legislative package also focuses on boosting US manufacturing and reducing federal regulations.
“We are going to incentivize American companies to manufacture in the US again, and we are going to make sure that the regulatory burden and the red tape that has smothered our free market is reduced and eliminated,” Johnson said on Sunday.
To pass these reforms, Johnson plans to use budget reconciliation, a legislative mechanism allowing bills to pass the Senate with a simple majority. He expects the package to be enacted within the first 100 days of the next Republican administration.
The agenda also includes strict immigration policies aimed at enhancing border security. Johnson has expressed support for completing the US-Mexico border wall and increasing enforcement measures.
Johnson’s re-election as speaker was widely viewed as a significant victory for conservatives. He has pledged to align closely with President-elect Donald Trump, who has similarly promised to dismantle the “deep state.”
The term often refers to entrenched federal employees and bureaucracies some conservatives believe obstruct Republican policies.
The term refers to much more than some federal employees and bureaucracies. They are just the tip of the iceberg. It's who owns those people and bureaucracies who make up the real Deep State.
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