Senator Rand Paul released his annual “Festivus Edition” of his Waste Report on government spending this past week and, as usual, the senator highlighted some of the dumbest, craziest, and most maddening examples of wasteful spending.

IJR:

“Happy Festivus! Is 2018 over already? It was just yesterday the national debt was pushing $20 trillion, and now it’s blown $21 trillion away!” the senator cracked a joke in the opening of his report. “What a year!”

Indeed 2018 was one for the record books. Paul outlined $114,514,631 in wasteful expenditures, including:

Providing stipends to soldiers in the Somali National Army (State): $76,321,379

Promoting the already overcrowded farmers market industry (USDA): $13,400,000

Teaching Rwandan special interest groups and citizens how to lobby (State): $250,000

Using theater to combat homelessness and poverty (NEA): $15,000

Studying the sexual habits of quails on cocaine (NIH): $874,503

Funding a fictionalized opera about Prince Harry (NEA): $15,000

Making videos marketing U.S. colleges to Indian students (State): $75,000

Blowing leaf blowers at lizards (NSF): $75,691

Supporting “legislative priorities” in Libya (State): $1,000,000

Putting on plays in Afghanistan (State): $200,000

Studying horse and donkey hunting on the ancient Anatolian Peninsula (NSF): $361,891

Supporting Egyptian tourism (State): $18,000,000

Paying to bring British student social activists to the U.S. (State): $200,000

Encouraging people in the Republic of the Congo to use local resources (State): $35,000

Studying daydreaming (NIH): $2,488,153

Conceptualizing games in India (State): $50,000

Paying for museum trips in Bosnia & Herzegovina for Bosnians & Herzegovinians (State): $50,000

Developing a Pashto-language TV drama series for Afghanistan (State): $653,014

Teaching female entrepreneurs in India how to “vlog” (State): $50,000

Supporting asset seizure programs in Paraguay (State): $400,000

I suppose that somewhere, somebody thought this spending was a brilliant idea. Most of us don’t. The point being, there are thousands upon thousands of these line items in the budget from every government department, every government agency, every government board, and every government panel — temporary, permanent, semi-permanent, ad-hoc, or otherwise.

Part of the solution is to give the president line item veto power. But really, when it comes down to it, it is voters who hold the power in their hands. We don’t hold our representatives accountable for this waste, so they keep wasting money. Year after year no one bothers to ask the very simple, direct question: “Is this spending necessary?” Failing that, perhaps an even better question would be: “Is this something the national government should be spending money on?”

I know those are silly, naive questions and it’s a pipe dream to think that congressmen even care. But would we really have a $900 billion deficit and a national debt over $21 trillion if those questions were asked?