Sen. Rand Paul’s ‘Festivus Report’: $54B in tax dollars was ‘totally wasted’…

Good morning and Happy #Festivus. Today we will air some more grievances in the holiday tradition!

— Senator Rand Paul (@RandPaul) December 23, 2020

We will talk about Congress, Petty Tyrants all over, foreign aid, wasteful spending, science denying “experts” and other holiday goodies.This is not the time for holiday cheer! That’s for TOMORROW, AFTER we air our grievances.

— Senator Rand Paul (@RandPaul) December 23, 2020

I’ll start where everyone in American should begin with their grievances. Congress. Oh, Congress, where to even begin.

— Senator Rand Paul (@RandPaul) December 23, 2020

Congress gave you $600. Would you like to know what they gave everyone else? #Festivus

— Senator Rand Paul (@RandPaul) December 23, 2020

$130 million to promote democracy in Nepal. $15 million to promote it in Pakistan. Interesting, since we can’t even seem to validate mail in ballots in the United States properly.

— Senator Rand Paul (@RandPaul) December 23, 2020

OH WAIT I FOUND IT. We are going to promote Democracy in America with $132 million in “assistance for GEORGIA.” No, wait, that’s the former Soviet Republic, never mind.

— Senator Rand Paul (@RandPaul) December 23, 2020

Remember this the next time they tell you there’s “nothing to cut.”

— Senator Rand Paul (@RandPaul) December 23, 2020

Researchers used federal funds from grants worth $1,327,781.72 to see if you’ll eat ground-up bugs. Read more here: https://t.co/BU1CjiZdgS pic.twitter.com/FT4XRhJZH3

— Senator Rand Paul (@RandPaul) December 23, 2020

U.S. Agency for International Development is spending $37,500,000.00 to help deal with truant Filipino youth. Read more here: https://t.co/BU1CjiZdgS pic.twitter.com/DZMrkGNZhR

— Senator Rand Paul (@RandPaul) December 23, 2020

Those are just a FEW of the worst. There are many many more. And of course Congress ADDED dozens more examples in just one hellish Bill this week.

— Senator Rand Paul (@RandPaul) December 23, 2020

From paul.senate.gov:

The Festivus Report 2020

To quote The Lord of the Rings, “It’s gone. It’s done… It’s over now.” A year that will live long in our memories (for mostly the wrong reasons), 2020, is drawing to a close. We’ve had 15-day lockdowns to stop COVID from spreading now stretching into nearly a year, wreaking havoc on Americans’ health, sanity, and economy, while also empowering petty tyrants across the country. Let’s just say 1968, the benchmark for a news-heavy and chaotic year, got serious competition from 2020.

While that was happening, Congress spent as never before, doing so ostensibly without a care. The Congressional Budget Office says the Fiscal Year 2020 deficit was an eye-watering $3.1 trillion, with a “T.” Some of that is traceable to COVID-related spending, but a lot of it was not. For example, perhaps somebody can explain to me why the Kennedy Center needed $25 million for salaries? Or why Congress reimbursed some agencies for money they had spent in late 2019 and early 2020, before COVID hit, on efforts unrelated to COVID? Maybe, just maybe, cutting agencies blank checks is why the debt skyrocketed from $23 trillion to more than $27 trillion. Spending was about 50% higher than last year, and payments of interest on the public debt remained extremely high at $387 billion. If you laid out that many $1 bills end to end, it’d be enough to wrap around the earth 1,506 times. And that’s money the government spends that doesn’t help anybody — doesn’t even buy a pen or a paper clip.

It is more important than ever for Congress to find its fiscal backbone. Our debt puts at risk the long-term solvency of major programs such as Social Security. And why? To pay for test tubes for COVID tests that turn out to be soda bottles? To see if hot tubbing a few times a week eases stress? Or is the risk worth it so we can literally lose drones over Afghanistan?!? You’ll find all that, and more, in this year’s edition of my Festivus Report, highlighting $54,746,524,505.37 of totally wasted money. So, before we get to the Feats of Strength, it’s time for my Airing of (Spending) Grievances!

I got a lotta problems with federal spending, and now you’re gonna hear about it!

Dr. Paul’s 2020 Airing of Spending Grievances

In this report, you will find…

• What does government waste mean for you?
• What could the government have paid for instead?
• The Waste of 2020
• Festivus 2020: The Top 10
• Spending Solutions: What’s Dr. Paul been up to this year?
• Dr. Paul’s Platinum Pig Awards for Wasteful Spending for…
  • Health Care
  • Foreign Aid
  • Environment, Energy, Science
  • Military
  • Miscellaneous

So, what does $54,746,524,505.37 mean to you?

If the waste I found is: $54,746,524,505.37
And the average taxpayer pays about: ÷ $10,006.55
Then Uncle Sam WASTED the taxes of: 5,471,368 people

5.4 million people is enough to fill every Power Five conference football stadium… with more than 1 million people left over.

If you spend all your time only counting to 54,746,524,505.37, one number per second, you would finish counting in the year 3756.

$54 billion is enough to buy every American a new 40″ flat screen TV.

If you lined up 5.4 million 6′ people head to toe, it would span the Appalachian Trail 2.5 times.

So, what else could $54,746,524,505.37 have bought us?

456,221 miles of paved two-lane roadway, enough to wrap the entire earth eighteen times!

Three years of the entire Treasury Department.

Six months of the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Do you think you could you have spent $54,746,524,505.37 better than the federal government?

View the full 45 page report here.