Tom Coburn, the Republican junior Senator from Oklahoma, recently announced his retirement. Prior to his election to the Senate, Coburn served three terms in the House of Representatives.

When I first came to Washington nearly 20 years ago, I didn’t set out to become known as a budget hawk—and I didn’t plan to earn nicknames like “Dr. No”—simply by adopting a skeptical approach toward spending taxpayer money. I was merely taking seriously the basic responsibility of a member of Congress: the unglamorous duty of oversight.

Over the years, my staff—which I believe is the best and the most prolific on Capitol Hill—has helped me uncover and root out thousands of examples of waste and mismanagement. Some of what we’ve found has been downright outrageous. Certainly, some of the most memorable examples, gathered here, are good for a laugh. But as my own time in the Senate draws to a close, I hope they also serve as trenchant reminders of what my colleagues ought to be fighting to stop.


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1. The Bridge to Nowhere

A notorious 2005 earmark authorized $452 million to build two bridges in Alaska—including one that became known as the so-called Bridge to Nowhere, which would have connected the city of Ketchikan to Gravina Island, home to only a few dozen people.

Our Solution: Shift $452 million to instead repair a bridge spanning Lake Pontchartrain in Louisiana that had been damaged by Hurricane Katrina.

Why it mattered: Even though we lost the vote 82 to 15, the debate was a galvanizing moment for what would become the Tea Party. In fact, nearly a decade later the Bridge to Nowhere is still cited in campaign ads. By singling out a specific project that had been sponsored by a fellow Republican, we openly challenged the party to restore its faith in limited government.

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2. The Woodstock Museum

In 2007, Congress authorized a $1 million earmark to build a museum dedicated to the 1969 Woodstock concert.

The Congress-authorized Woodstock Museum. | AP Photo

Our Solution: An amendment to provide additional funding for children’s health care.

Why it mattered: This was a rare vote we won. After a motion to table the amendment failed, the amendment passed by a live unanimous consent. We hoped the museum project would mark the dawning of the age of accountability—it was featured in a raucous and psychedelic ad used by John McCain’s presidential campaign in 2008. With this vote, and many others, I also wanted to communicate our willingness to accept incremental changes and, if necessary, end earmarks one project at a time.

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3. Duplication Nation

Every year the federal government wastes at least $200 billion in duplicative federal programs, agencies, offices and initiatives.

Our Solution: With a bill in 2009 that passed 94-0, we were able to direct the Government Accountability Office to annually compile a list of all this overlapping spending.

Why it mattered: So far, the GAO’s three reports have produced a mother lode of potential savings. When the first list was released in 2009, senators lined up to applaud GAO’s work and promise action. Representatives Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) have taken up this fight, as has Senator Tim Scott (R-S.C.). But they need more support. Rank and file members, particularly conservatives, should be badgering leadership with action items based on GAO’s ready-made list.

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4. The Adult Baby

We were curious to learn, in 2011, of a subculture of adults who dress, eat and otherwise behave as babies. We were further shocked to discover that some, including a man named Stanley Thornton—who was featured in a television program—had funded his infantile lifestyle by relying on disability payments from the Social Security Administration.

Our Solution: We asked the Social Security inspector general to investigate, noting that Mr. Thornton had, on television, appeared perfectly able to perform tasks including designing and building custom baby furniture. “It is possible,” I pointed out, “that he has been improperly collecting disability benefits for a period of time.”

Why it mattered: The case was easy to poke fun at, but it led to a pair of sobering investigations into our disability system, one of which was featured on 60 Minutes. The disability program has become a de facto welfare program that is crowding out people who are truly unable to work—pushing the program closer to bankruptcy, which could happen as soon as 2016.

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5. Unemployment Payouts to Millionaires

It’s not just adult babies gaming the system. In 2011, we discovered that federal unemployment benefits are being sent to the wealthy—who bilk the system out of at least $30 million each year.

Our Solution: In April 2011, the Senate approved, in a vote of 100-0, an amendment to end unemployment payments to millionaires, but the underlying provision did not become law.

Why it Mattered: I was never interested in demonizing success, just highlighting the incompetence of government programs that provide unemployment payments to people who do not need them.

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6. Shrimp on a Treadmill

In 2007, the National Science Foundation committed more than $500,000 to study the mobility of shrimp by conducting experiments that involved placing the crustaceans on treadmills.

This is what a shrimp on a treadmill looks like.

Our Solution: We featured the example in our 2011 report “The National Science Foundation: Under the Microscope” that was written to encourage the NSF to target resources in a smarter, more effective manner.

Why it matted: The video of a shrimp running on a treadmill became an iconic illustration of curious grant funding. As a physician, I’m among the most pro-science members of Congress, which is why I fought to make sure scarce tax-dollars promote science rather than, say, shrimp fitness videos.

Not surprisingly, grant recipients tend to not enjoy the attention that comes with being mentioned in such reports. But the oversight work is designed to send a clear message to grant applicants: If you don’t want your federal funding scrutinized, don’t ask for taxpayer money.

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7. The RoboSquirrel

Speaking of wasteful research, in 2012, we highlighted a $325,000 study on the interaction between rattlesnakes and squirrels that made use of a robotic squirrel.

Why it mattered: As with the shrimp, the video of a robotic squirrel being attacked by a rattlesnake created quite a sensation. Researchers wanted to look at how the heatsignatures of squirrel tails helped confuse rattlesnakes. The application of the study wasn’t clear but one could imagine military uses.

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8. The Pentagon’s “Did Jesus die for Klingons too?” symposium

In 2012, we issued a report titled “Department of Everything” that showed how the Department of Defense could make cuts in “non-defense” spending – spending in DOD that has nothing to do with our national defense, which we’ve estimated totals almost $68 billion. In the report, we highlighted surprising spending on beef jerky and a smartphone add to gauge caffeine intake. Our eyebrows were also raised by a strategy planning workshop for which nearly $100,000 was allocated. One of the sessions at the symposium explored the relationship between Jesus and Klingons, the famous alien species in the Star Trek series.

Why it mattered: Too often, defense spending is the Republicans’ Medicare—a sacrosanct area of the budget that shall not be touched. We’ve tried to challenge this view by criticizing spending that is obviously wasteful and parochial (buying systems we don’t need; boosting contractors in certain districts), but also by highlighting non-defense defense spending. As for the Klingon chat, I wasn’t making a conclusion about the symposium’s topic; I was merely suggesting that the DOD is probably not equipped to go where many theologians have gone before. Certainly our defense priorities involve concerns greater than intergalactic theology.

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9. The Turtle Tunnel

In 2009, a “stimulus” project for a $3.4 million wildlife “eco-passage” was greenlighted in Florida to help turtles and other wildlife cross beneath a busy road.

Why it mattered: At a time when the federal government was pouring billions of dollars into questionable, lower-priority projects the turtle tunnel become an iconic example of stimulus spending stimulating very little. Five years later, our recovery is still moving a turtle’s pace (we took a magnifying glass to profligate stimulus spending and issued three reports on it).

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10. Handouts for Pro Athletes and Team Owners

In 2013 we sponsored a bill to end the nonprofit tax exemption for for-profit sports leagues.

Why it matters: Many Americans have come to view appropriations earmarks like the Bridge to Nowhere with an appropriate degree of revulsion. But tax earmarks remain entrenched, even though they operate by keeping tax rates artificially high for everyone who doesn’t receive the benefit.

In 2011, a bipartisan group of senators helped end the ethanol tax earmark, which saved about $6 billion a year. But even ethanol has not captured the public’s imagination quite like the realization that Americans are paying artificially high tax rates to essentially provide welfare for athletes like Tiger Woods, NFL team owners like Jerry Jones and Dan Snyder, and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, who earns $29.5 million a year. All of these people are indirectly subsidized by the nonprofit tax status their decidedly for-profit leagues enjoy. The tax write-off helps their bottom line. I love football and golf and want to see these businesses succeed, but every business and every American needs tax reform. I can’t think of a better lead blocker than highlighting the nonprofit status of for-profit sports leagues.

CORRECTION: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that a 2007 amendment to shift funding away from a Woodstock Museum failed. The measure passed