FESTIVUS 2025: Stupid Government Programs That Cost You Big $$$
Is this Taxation Without Representation?
This is part of a series his of the articles on government waste that will come out over the next month. Make sure you upgrade to a paid subscription so you get every article!
The eleventh edition of Sen. Rand Paul’s Festivus Report proves he is working hard to alert the American people to how their federal government uses their hard-earned money.
Your tax dollars not only fund some obviously stupid government programs, they also contribute to government-sanctioned animal cruelty.
Millions of your hard-earned tax dollars went to funding “brutal experiments on dogs, monkeys, and rats.”
This includes “over $13.8 million on beagle experiments, and $14,643,280 to make monkeys play a ‘Price Is Right’-inspired video game.
It’s a man-made animal hell on earth. And it doesn’t get much better.
“No matter how much taxpayer money Washington burns through, politicians can’t help but demand more,” Paul noted in his introduction to the report.
“Fiscal responsibility may not be the most crowded road, but it’s one I’ve walked year after year—and this holiday season will be no different,” Paul continued.
Fiscal responsibility would mean—among other things—eliminating freeloaders, crazy Leftists, and fraudsters from the federal government.
Until that is done, it can be argued that Americans are being taxed without representation. We all know what happens when this practice reaches critical mass because it happened before.
Can you say “Boston Tea Party”?
Woke Waste
Digging into the report reveals that there’s a theme. A lot of government waste goes to Woke initiatives designed to appease minorities who have been brainwashed into thinking they’re victims.
That’s the Left’s strategy: create psychological victims so the government can play hero.
Here’s a sampling:
Tik Tok Therapy: Fighting Drugs with Influencers: The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is spending $1.5 million on an “innovative multilevel strategy” to reduce drug use in ‘Latinx’ communities through celebrity influencer campaigns.
The “Latinx” is the giveaway that this comes from the Wokenista agenda. The vast majority of Hispanics are against the Latinx designation.
Make Vegetables More Inclusive: USDA spent $141,517 to create a ‘resilient and equitable’ local food network that prioritizes culturally relevant food for low-income LGBT people of color from the Bronx and Brooklyn.
This one’s self-explanatory. “Low-income LGBT people of color” is about as Woke as you can get.
Woke U: HHS gave $3.3 million to Northwestern University so they can hire 15 people, erect “scientific neighborhoods,” install “safe space ambassadors,” and form endless committees to “dismantle systemic racism.”
Enough said.
Bears, Drag Queens, and Bureaucracy: HHS spent $936,000 on marketing campaigns, advisory boards, and engagement strategies targeting niche subcultures in Los Angeles—specifically the “bear/cub,” “drag queen,” and “queer punk rock” scenes—about STD testing and treatment capacity.
Not convinced? Here’s a couple more.
Grants for Guatemalan Gender Bending: USAID squandered $2 million for “gender-affirming care,” activism, and influence campaigns in Guatemala.
Gender Affirming Care and LGBTQ Children’s Hospital: $2 Million to a San Diego hospital running a pediatric gender-affirming care center that facilitates gender transition surgeries for kids.
Animal Cruelty
If the Woke agenda of wasteful spending doesn’t get your goat, maybe the wanton cruelty to animals on the government dime will.
Fauci’s Beagle Labs Live On: NIH extended funding for Dr. Fauci’s cruel beagle experiments, costing taxpayers $13.8 million.
Coked-Up Canines Redux: NIH spent $5,215,216 to dose dogs with cocaine. Again.
Ferrets on a Booze Binge: The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) wasted over $1,079,360 teaching teenage ferrets to binge drink alcohol.
The Price is Wrong for Monkey Plinko: NSF and other federal agencies paid $14,643,280 to make monkeys play a “Price Is Right”-inspired video game.
Marine Mammal Money Pit: The Department of Defense (DOD) is spending an estimated $77 million a year on an unnecessary dolphin training program that Congress won’t let end.
Coked-up dogs chasing drunk ferrets while monkeys play the Price is Right. Is it a horror movie or a comedy?
Whatever it is, it comes from sick, government-funded minds.
Out of Control Debt
The Festivus Report suggests that far too many politicians are playing the fiddle as the U.S. burns itself into insolvency.
“Interest payments on the debt increased 7% to reach $1.2 trillion. That now tops every other federal program save for Social Security,” reported The Washington Times.
Trump’s tariffs are helping, but on their own, they won’t be enough. Government waste is unsustainable.
How many taxpayers would vote for unsustainable spending if it were on the ballot? Only those who hate America.
The Festivus Report is filled with facts, not propaganda. That’s what Americans need.
We need people like Rand Paul to keep bringing government waste to the forefront. An informed public is a dangerous public as far as waste-monger politicians are concerned.
I would like to see us get back to government by policy instead of government by programs. The idea that problems will go away once we create a department to address that problem and then fund it annually with increasing budgets is idiotic on the face of it. It flies in the face of human experience, intelligence, and plain old common sense. EVERYBODY knows what happens when a government agency is created, especially the characters who invent and promote them. It's maddening. Oversight becomes "a threat to the program" and "an insult to our fine men and women". Apart from that, any attempt at oversight becomes the job of (yes, you guessed it!) a government agency, resisting oversight of itself. Government by policy can avoid the worst of the abuses and futilities of government by program. Annual budgets and ad hoc agencies with firm sunset dates would make financial accountability more achievable. Limited career opportunities and benefits would prevent, or at least mitigate, the creation of bureaucratic fiefdoms. We deserve better. We need to demand better.
Please take America reborn off my feed