TreasureKY
Posts: 3032
Joined: 4/10/2007
From: Kentucky
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I've not fact checked these, but here's a list of crazy things the US government supposedly pays for:
1. Since 2008 the Federal government has allocated almost $3m towards researching how gamers engage in "creative collaboration online... by paying people to play World of Warcraft.
2. Over the past several years the government, through the University of Puerto Rico, has spent almost half a million dollars annually to study and document the social habits and behaviors of male prostitutes in Vietnam.
3. 2011, nearly $800,000 of taxpayer money went towards subsidizing an IHOP restaurant in an allegedly under-served neighborhood of Washinton DC. Apparently Colombia Heights falls into that category, but hey, rich people need pancakes too.
4. Every year, the Department of energy of all places, manages to waste over $2 million simply by failing to turn off the lights. Thats enough to power 3200 homes for an entire year.
5. In 2011 roughly $2.6 million went towards “parliamentary strengthening” in Eastern Europe. In other words, we taught them to balance their checkbooks.
6. Every year the IRS spends nearly $1 million to store unused furniture, and the last time we checked they had over 20,000 items in their inventory.
7. In 2009 the Federal Aviation Administration spent $5 million to send 3600 employees to a 3 week long conference in Atlanta. Supposedly it was necessary in order to promote harmony in the workplace.
8. Last year the government spent just under $1 million posting snippets of poetry in zoos around the country.
9. Each year government agencies rack up close to a billion dollars in unnecessary printing expenses.
10. Last year the Philadelphia Housing Authority, an office funded almost completely by the federal government, used about $1 million of its budget to pay off four female plaintiffs who filed suits against its director for sexual harassment.
11. In 2010 taxpayers forked over $90,000 to help promote the Vidalia Onion Brand in conjunction with the new Shrek movie.
12. Last year year the National Science Foundation spent a quarter of a million dollars studying the reasons why political candidates make vague statements.
13. In 2010 almost $2 million were allocated towards building a neon sign graveyard just outside Las Vegas.
14. Last year almost $100,000 went towards purchasing iPads for kindergardeners in Maine.
15. In 2011 upwards of $700,000 was spent studying the greenhouse gas emissions of dairy farms.
16. Each year the government spends almost half a million dollars maintaining the office of the former speaker of the house in spite of the fact that he is almost never there.
17. In 2010 the government spent nearly 1.5 million dollars renovating 36 toilets in Denali National Park, Alaska.
18. The Federal government set aside $100,000 for a “celebrity chef fruit promotion road show in Indonesia”.
19. Nearly $592,000 has been spent on research that included observing monkeys throwing poop.
20. Every year government agencies spend over $4 million shuttling federal employees on near-empty busses running along overlapping routes through the streets of Washington DC. A recent report found that half of the existing routes could be eliminated with no change in service but unfortunately none of the agencies are willing to share.
21. The government spent almost half a million dollars trying to determine the trustworthiness of tweets.
22. In 2011 the United States spent nearly $18 million on foreign aid programs to its biggest sovereign lender, China. This included $2.5 million for social services and $4.4 million to help improve its environment.
23. Every year the government delivers over $120 million worth of benefit checks to deceased federal employees... over $601 million in the last five years.
24. The U.S. Agency for International Development provided $10 million to a Pakistani arts organization to adapt "Sesame Street" for Pakistani toddlers. The money will also help pay for the creation of 130 episodes of the show.
25. The National Science Foundation spent $131,000 on robot dragons designed to mimic human responses to help teach preschoolers language skills. Apparently interaction with real humans was deemed inadequate.
26. The US Government donated $50,000 to the annual Cowboy Poetry celebration this year.
27. The National Institute of Health gave the University of Kentucky $176,000 to determine if Japanese quail are more likely to have sex when high on cocaine. The study is scheduled to last through 2015.
28. Another National Science Foundation grant for $198,000 paid for a University of California-Riverside study of "motivations, expectations and goal pursuit in social media." Among the questions the study seeks to answer: "Do unhappy people spend more time on Twitter or Facebook?"
29. The federal government gave the Hawaii Department of Agriculture $50,000 to help pay for the 2nd Annual Hawaiian Chocolate Festival.
30. The U.S. government spent $74,000 last year to help the state of Michigan "increase awareness about the role Michigan plays in the production of trees and poinsettias."
31. A private company was given $484,000 by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to build a Mellow Mushroom pizzeria in Arlington, TX.
32. The National Science Foundation wants to help politicians in India do a better job. So it is awarded a $426,000 grant for research to determine the effectiveness of communications to citizens from officeholders. The U.S. sent $126 million in aid to India last year, even though it is one of the fastest growing economies in the world.
33. The State Department contributed $350,000 for the United States to be part of the 54th International Art Exhibition in Venice, Italy.
34. The U.S. Agency for International Development spent $1.35 million on an "entrepreneurship initiative" for the Caribbean island nation of Barbados.
35. A video game promotional organization in Massachusetts landed $100,000 to help developers create intellectual property and help businesses get access to capital.
36. The Virginia Commonwealth University received $55,000 in 2011 (part of a larger $170,000 grant) to study changes in the hookah smoking habits of students in the nation of Jordan.
37. Did you know there is an American Museum of Magic in Marshall, MI? Well, the magic museum made $147,000 of your tax dollars disappear last year. The purpose of the federal largesse was to help the museum "better understand its various audiences and their potential interest in the history of magic entertainment."
38. Thanks to a $25,000 federal grant, visitors to the Milwaukee Public Museum will now be able to experience a "3-D high-definition, full-color true holographic or holographic-like exhibit of a virtual mummy unwrapping."
Yes, yes... I know. All totaled, it's hardly a dent in the Federal debt. But how many rounds of dialysis would this pay for?
< Message edited by TreasureKY -- 10/12/2013 8:27:26 PM >
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RE: United States Debt... or the Elephant in the Room - 
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