Subscriber Special: Where's the Pork? Time to get angry about waste

May 4, 2018 10:00 AM

"Just how much federal waste, duplication and weird or unnecessary spending are your tax dollars funding?"

The federal government doled out 560,771 grants in fiscal year 2016, totaling $583 billion. On average, each grant exceeded $1 million.

Research shows pork-barrel spending is bipartisan, as the top 50 grant-receiving districts are represented by 27 democrats and 23 republicans. The top 10 congressional districts are evenly split: 5 democrats and 5 republicans.

Consider just a few examples of taxpayer abuse:

Virtual Reality Platform to Teach Children in China How to Cross the Street – $183,750 from the Department of Health and Human Services funded a virtual reality platform in China to teach safe pedestrian techniques.

New Condom Design with More Lubrication – $200,601 in taxpayer money funded a new condom design that lowers the chance of breakage and increases "satisfaction between partners."

Cigar Taste Test – $114,375 funded a study to determine whether cigar flavor affected its addictiveness.

Sex Ed for Prostitutes in California – $1.5 million funded "safer sex and needle" education for prostitutes in California even though prostitution is illegal in the state.

Space Racers: An Animated Children’s Cartoon – $2.5 million in NASA funding supported the production of two seasons of a children’s cartoon series about galactic adventures.

These grants flowed to state governments ($505 billion); higher education institutions ($35 billion); for profit organizations including Fortune 100 companies ($2.5 billion); nonprofit organizations ($19.8 billion); and more.

Fortune 100 companies received $3.2 billion in federal grants between fiscal year 2014 and 2016. Boeing can’t argue it needed $774 million in federal grants while reporting nearly $95 billion in 2016 annual revenue.

How can we rein in this insanity? The people must bring the heat, so the politicians see the light on fiscal restraint.