Sen. Tom Coburn has released his annual oversight report highlighting some $6.5 billion in what he calls “the most egregious ways your taxpayer dollars were wasted” over the past year. The report, which the Oklahoma Republican calls “
Wastebook 2011,” details 100 of the “countless, unnecessary, duplicative, and low-priority projects,” on which the federal government has spent money.
“Video games, robot dragons, Christmas trees, and magic museums. This is not a Christmas wish list, these are just some of the ways the federal government spent your tax dollars,” Coburn writes in the introduction to the report. “Over the past 12 months, politicians argued, debated, and lamented about how to reign in the federal government’s out of control spending.
“All the while, Washington was on a shopping binge, spending money we do not have on things we do not absolutely need,” he said. “Instead of cutting wasteful spending, nearly $2.5 billion was added each day in 2011 to our national debt, which now exceeds $15 trillion.”
Among the examples cited by Coburn:
• $75,000 to promote the role Michigan plays in Christmas tree and poinsettia production.
• $113,227 for a video game preservation center in New York.
• $550,000 for a documentary on how rock music contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Union.
• And $10 million for a remake of “Sesame Street” that apparently went to Pakistan.
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