In our 48th episode of the Madness Chronicles, we’ll look at the madness of government spending. Remember, madness is a state of being mentally ill, severely, extremely foolish behavior, and a form of frenzied or chaotic activity. Let’s take a look at some of the most egregious spending in 2020.
We all know getting old, and growing grey hair is a problem. Worry not. Your extraordinary Congress spent $37 million on a study to determine why hair turns grey. No word on what they found. They spent another $32 million to see the effects of e-cigarettes on heart attacks. No results because the study was, in the end, found to be fake.
Congress was right there for the Native Americans spending $58 million on urban Indian healthcare. Are they like urban cowboys? Really, how many could there be, and why unique healthcare for them? Not to be outdone, the Veterans Administration spent $3.5 billion (with a B) for, get this, orders they are waiting on but never delivered. I know it’s overused, but you can’t make this stuff up.
We spent $3.5 million sending messages to Mom’s to get them to stop their daughters from indoor tanning. Wrap your head around that one. We spent another $3 million interviewing San Franciscans about their edible cannabis use. Add to that another $2 million to see if hot-tubbing lowers stress-our tax dollars at work.
Getting to some important stuff, we spent $1.5 million in a study watching lizards walk on treadmills. Presumably, there was a purpose for this, but we can’t be sure?
We spent another $2 million attempting to develop a headset that would track eating habits and patterns. A quick call to Fitbit could have saved big bucks.
Of course, all of this is chump change compared to military spending. We spent $29 billion (with a B) developing a replacement for the Bradley fighting vehicle. And it might be useful to mention, after decades we still don’t have a replacement.
The Army Corps of Engineers built a state of the art police complex for $3.1 million. Good stuff. It was never used because there was no way to get power to it.
The Defense Department lost some equipment destined for Syria to fight ISIS. That was a mere $715 million. The irony, of course, is that Obama created ISIS, so maybe they bound the equipment. No piker themselves, FEMA spent $10 million on COVID test tubes. The problem was they received plastic soda bottles instead. Close only in a game of hand grenades.
Skipping to foreign aid, we spent $38 million to help deal with truant Filipino youth. I wonder if the truants are behaving now? Moving to Zimbabwe, we spent $10 million monitoring their elections for the past five years. Maybe that’s why we didn’t watch our own elections? Then on to Tunisia, where we spent a mere $48 million helping disconnected youth not feel like a problem to society.
We spent $3.5 million sending Russian kids to American universities for their ‘gap’ year. I’m sure we were flat out of American kids needing help. And that money pit in Afghanistan came calling. We spent $8.6 billion on anti-narcotics trafficking efforts. That is probably confusing to the American military who served there. You see, they were forbidden from bombing the drug trucks running at night. True story.
Our nation is hopelessly in debt, and Congress keeps spending like drunken monkeys with an American Express card. We spent money on training theatrical performers in Kenya and putting on plays in Mumbai. There is no problem our Congressmen can’t solve with our money and money from our great-grandkids down the line. It is madness.
May we wake from this madness before it’s too late. I wish you good health, and until next time, have fun, enjoy life, and watch out for the madness amongst us. It’s 2020; look around; it’s outrageous.
