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. This covers his phone bill, cable, and even payments on a leased car.
In 2010 the government spent nearly 1.5 million dollars renovating 36 toilets in Denali National Park, Alaska. That translates to over $40,000 per toilet.In one of the stranger acts of budget allocation history the federal government set aside $100,000 for a “celebrity chef fruit promotion road show in Indonesia”. After some careful research we are still not entirely sure what that even means.As you’ve already seen, the government spends a good amount of money doing research and over the past few years at least a portion of that has gone towards observing monkeys as they throw poop at each other. We eagerly anticipate the findings.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.In yet another groundbreaking study the government spent almost half a million dollars trying to determine the trustworthiness of tweets. Half a million dollars.
In 2011 the United States spent nearly $18 million on foreign aid programs to its biggest sovereign lender. This included 2.5 million for social services and 4.4 million to help improve its environment.Every year the government delivers over $120 million worth of benefit checks to deceased federal employees. It’s literally sending money to dead people.
Although this isn’t a budget item it is an important point. Everyone has one, especially concerning how federal tax dollars should be spent whether its monkey poop, pancakes, or toilets. So, as funny as some of these can be, their importance is a matter of opinion and their slice of the federal debt is absolutely negligible, which leads us to number 1…You’ll notice from the chart that almost 75% of the federal budget goes towards social security, medicare, interest payments, and defense. The other quarter gets divided up among the remaining departments of the government. So, at the end of the day a good chunk of your paycheck is paying for two things – insurance and guns.1 2
You will note that the author cannot do basic math
the caption on the pie chart on #1 states 75% is used on social security, medicare, defense, and interest on the debt — BUT the percentages actually add up to 10 + 20 + 18 + 18 = 68%
2/3 is closer to 68% than 3/4
Just sayin
yeah I meant 66%
Just sayin
I liked #3. Gotta pay those dead people that vote for you!
Where is cannabis prohibition? The government spends $10.7 billion a year arresting and prosecuting people for weed. That’s MORE money than they spend on ALL of the things on this list COMBINED! All to fight a plant that 56%+ Americans want legal. INCREDIBLE!
Number 11 is actually an important thing to study, considering cattle contribute a large percentage of greenhouse gases to our environment.
No, cow farts and burps are not an important thing to study.
My favorite has to be number 4. Borrow money from a country and then spend it helping them do.. what exactly?
Hopefully alleviating rural poverty, but who knows?