2015 Federal Spendy Award Winner Announced

It’s time to announce the winner of the 2015 Spendy Award.

The Spendy goes to the federal agency with the most extensive record of incompetence and contempt for the taxpayer over the past year.

Bonus points are awarded to federal agencies performing a function completely absent from the Constitution and better left to the private sector.

Spendy winners are characterized by cabinet secretaries who gamely attend congressional hearings, where hours are spent detailing the mismanagement, waste, theft, and general uselessness of their agency. 

Then, oozing sincerity, the secretary looks the chairman right in the eye and blames it all on a poorly–produced Internet video.

Wait, that excuse is only used for fatal incompetence.

In this instance the secretary swears the problem will be solved by increasing his appropriation by a few hundred million dollars. Allowing management to appoint a study committee to produce more persuasive talking points the next time disaster strikes.


Competition was fierce, as always. The Pentagon was wasting tax dollars sponsoring the Military Bowl and the All–American Bowl, presumably as recruiting tools, while all four branches of the service continued to reduce personnel numbers.

Medicare was nominated after being required to cover body vandalism — also known as “gender reassignment surgery” because our government is incapable of distinguishing between legitimate health goals and dangerous delusions.

President Obama announced that America will no longer function as the world’s policeman — someone please alert the luxury box ticket holders at the Military Bowl—then decided it’s time to become the world’s district attorney.

U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch’s bid for a Spendy came with the arrest of FIFA officials in Zurich, Switzerland.

It’s ironic that an administration that can’t be bothered to enforce our immigration statutes on willful lawbreakers in Texas and Arizona is hell-bent on enforcing tax and bribery laws in Switzerland.

The list of indicted included nine from South and Central America, two from the Caribbean, and one each from the U.S. and the U.K.

Lynch’s big accomplishment is she’s managed to round up the handful of South Americans that aren’t trying to sneak across the border and demand they be sent here anyway.

As worthy of condemnation as the previous entries are, the finalists were the Dept. of Agriculture and the Veteran’s Administration.

It’s difficult to decide which agency is more dangerous. The USDA damages millions while slowly making their lives miserable by removing flavor from food — all based on bad “science.” 

And that’s before collateral damage. VA incompetence is confined to the system. There are no entrepreneurs wanting to cash in by building a chain of “Lengthy Wait Clinics." No so for empty–headed nutritionists and personal trainers gleefully passing along USDA dietary propaganda.

USDA quacks and food fanatics are single–handedly responsible for the obesity crisis that has made type 2 diabetes the trademark affliction of the U.S. welfare state. This crisis has upended the food industry, bloated millions and cost billions and it was all based on “settled science” that was dangerously wrong.

Reduce saturated fat intake to 10 percent? Wrong. Cut back on salt until corned beef is only a memory? Wrong. Increase carbohydrate intake of until you look like a stuffed shell? Wrong.

According to the Daily Mail: “A new review says evidence from trials did not support the advice. It says it is ‘incomprehensible’ that such advice was introduced for 56 million Britons . . . and 220 million Americans . . . ‘given the contrary results from a small number of unhealthy men.’”

Advocates of a low–carbohydrate diet were met with the same vicious attacks skeptics of low-carbon receive today.

The final admission of guilt came from Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack who admitted 40 years of wrong–headed dietary guidelines promulgated by fanatics were, "really about well-informed opinion. I wish there were scientific facts.”

When not removing flavor from food, USDA bureaucrats were enforcing crony capitalism for the sun-dried set. Decades of raisins seized from farmers were put in National Raisin Reserve warehouses to create an artificial shortage designed increase prices.


It took a Supreme Court decision to end this unconstitutional government theft.

USDA even wastes money on Thanksgiving. Six federal employees were sitting by the phone like the Maytag man, waiting to aid “people who need help preparing their Thanksgiving dinner.”

And on line No. 2, the National Institute of Health (NIH) was ready to help Americans digest their dinner.

For encouraging the growth of diabetes, violating the Constitution and wasting tax dollars on a national holiday I give you the USDA: Winner of the 2015 Spendy Award!

And my nominee for the first agency our next conservative president disbands.  . . .

Michael R. Shannon is a commentator, researcher (for the League of American Voters), and an award-winning political and advertising consultant with nationwide and international experience. He is author of "Conservative Christian’s Guidebook for Living in Secular Times (Now with added humor!)." Read more of Michael Shannon's reports — Go Here Now.