Top Ten Wasteful Spending Projects of 2015

Senator Jeff Flake (R-AZ) released his first “government wastebook”, which he aptly titled, “The Farce Awakens.” Outlining the egregious misuses of taxpayer dollars in fiscal year 2015, the document reaches two-hundred-eighty-four pages and includes quite an array of expenditures that are sure to evoke laughter, tears, frustration, and amazement. Here are ten of the most wasteful spending projects documented by Senator Flake’s report:

1. Monkeys on a Treadmill – $1 million

Your government sent $1 million to the National Institutes of Health in Texas and Maryland to teach monkeys how to run on treadmills. Twelve monkeys were placed into “transparent rodent exercise balls” and slowly taught to run on the treadmill. But wait, there’s action! One monkey vomited, and three others defecated in their exercise balls. You may proceed to thanking your government for making this pressing information available at your expense.

2. Hipster Parties – $5 million

The National Institute of Health in California dished out $5 million to the “Help a Hipster” movement (how am I just now hearing about this?) to help them throw groovy parties with indie rock bands. The movement is aimed at encouraging hipsters to “take a stand” against tobacco corporations and stop smoking– and paid those hipsters for joining the movement. Why, you may ask, is a special effort being made for hipsters? Well… “hipsters are an unusual subculture.”

3. Sheep in Microgravity – $1.2 million

NASA is spending $1.2 million to study the effects of microgravity on sheep. A brace was attached to the back leg of twenty-three sheep, which prevented that leg from bearing any weight, simulating the effects of microgravity. After three weeks, veterinarians surgically removed part of the bone in that sheep’s leg and then reattached the brace to monitor the healing process while the leg was still suspended in microgravity. Hey, maybe the cow that jumped over the moon is getting close to retirement? Bedtime stories of counting sheep were just too boring without this galactic gravity component.

Read the rest over at The College Conservative.

Bethany Bowra is a political science student at Florida Atlantic University. She began writing at age fourteen and since then has written for various national news websites, as well as spoken at events like CPAC and True the Vote Summit. She has appeared on national television shows such as Dana on TheBlazeTV and radio programs such as NRA News and The Dana Show, and has interviewed figures such as Speaker John Boehner and Senator Mike Lee. Bethany currently lives in South Florida.