We’ve all been there. You’re tired, you’re hungry, and something happens that sets you off. It happens to the best of us.

The term for this phenomenon is “hangry”—an amalgam of hungry and angry.

As a grandfather of 10, I would suggest that anyone who has spent time around a hungry toddler would agree that, yes, being hangry is a real thing.

As a grandfather of 10, I would suggest that anyone who has spent time around a hungry toddler would agree that, yes, being hangry is a real thing. It’s why you see so many moms and dads of young kids walking around with a bag full of snacks. They want to fend off those hangry feelings before they get out of control.

Amazingly, the federal government decided it needed to fund research to see if “hanger” is a real condition. Over a three-year period, the National Science Foundation (NSF) spent $331,000 for researchers to study whether or not hanger actually occurs.

The National Science Foundation paid these researchers to conduct a study of married couples where spouses were given voodoo dolls representing their significant others. Each person could stick pins into the voodoo dolls whenever the spouse made him or her angry. Researchers measured whether the spouses stuck more needles into the voodoo dolls when they were hungry to determine if they were in fact hangry.

Talk about a waste. Think of all the Snickers bars you could have bought with over $300,000.

The researchers concluded that people really are more likely to be irritated by the daily “small stuff” of life when they are really hungry. So, yes, a taxpayer-funded research project determined that hanger is real.

As funny as this all sounds, it really is not a laughing matter—it should make every American taxpayer furious.

As funny as this all sounds, it really is not a laughing matter—it should make every American taxpayer furious. This voodoo doll study of hanger cost the equivalent of nearly seven years of income for the average family in my home state of Indiana.

It is clear from opinion polls and primary election results that citizens of our country are furious with Washington, and who can blame them? With our country $19 trillion in debt, it is outrageous that taxpayer dollars continue to be spent on things like research on hanger.