Wasteful Government Spending

[TheRunningMan]

http://www.coburn.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?a=Files.Serve&File_id=b69a6ebd-7ebe-41b7-bb03-c25a5e194365

Found this gem today. I don't care which side your on, its a joke what they do with our money.

I just want 8 year limits, I am so tired of lifers in there.

This is the lead from the article:
U.S. Senator Tom Coburn, M.D. (R-OK) today released a new oversight report, “Wastebook 2011” that highlights over $6.5 billion in examples of some of the most egregious ways your taxpayer dollars were wasted. This report details 100 of the countless unnecessary, duplicative and low-priority projects spread throughout the federal government.

[pizza delivery]

I agree, many programs are "wasteful", but this report adds up to 6.9 billion, (I'm not sure if that's per year or just what they've found overall) and it goes on to say that each day 2.5 billion is added to our debt. Is this an illustration of the whole problem, or just a distraction that is meant to add fuel to the partisan fire? IMO, the enormity of the spending/revenue problem is way beyond the scope of this report. It has to do with the world economy becoming more competitive while multi-nationals seek the lowest denominator in terms of employees.

[Snipe]

If only we had more government I think all of life's questions could be answered.


Feces -Throwing Reveals Communication Skills in Chimps – (GA) ~ $592,527

Chimpanzees will often throw food or feces at passersby. Taxpayers have funded a study to
figure out the origins of this odd behavior.

William Hopkins, at Agnes Scott College, and researchers at the Yerkes National Primate
Research Center (associated with Emory University) used a portion of the $600,000 from the
National Institutes of Health in 2011 to assist their study of throwing behavior in chimpanzees
and its neurological origins.519, 520,521 Chimpanzees are one of very few organisms that can throw
objects, which zoo visitors can often observe. For example, one of the investigators‘ research
papers says, ―Some of the chimpanzees will pile feces or wet chow in their cage and wait for
visitors to pass by before throwing this at them.

Their studies have found that chimps in the wild seldom use throwing to obtain food. Rather,
chimpanzees learned to throw objects in order to ―control or manipulate behavior‖ of other apes
or even humans.523 That‘s not to say that throwing helps chimps in captivity get what they
want. The researchers observe that chimpanzee caretakers rarely ―reward a chimpanzee with
food immediately after they had just been soiled with feces by the very same ape.‖524
Hopkins and his team wanted ultimately to understand what throwing feces and food has to do
with the neurological origins of communications in chimps. To that end, they took MRIs of
chimpanzee brains, and then put those chimps through other cognitive tests.525 They found that
chimps that excelled at throwing feces and other objects had better communication skills than
chimps with less-refined skills.

It was always one of the great mysteries.

What does this all mean?

Some guy came up with the original idea. He was probably at the zoo and has some shit thrown at him. Newton got hit with an apple and the rest is history. Our budding young government scientist got hit with some shit and dared to dream the big dream.

He thought it was such a great idea that he put together a grant proposal and a budget. Those are not little things. It takes some effort. Then he submits it. I presume that they don't approve them all, and that approval is done by committee.

So a committee gets together and reads all the proposals. They end up liking the shitty chimp proposal. That has to give us some insight about the quality of the other proposals. Imagine that job. Those people give money away for a living, and they give $600k to just one shitty chimp proposal.

Our budding young scientist gets funding and he starts on his mission. Apparently it seems that much of his work went into sitting around and waiting for chimps to throw shit at people. That is almost as creepy as single old men at parks (but that is another study). His parents must be so proud.

How does that go over at cocktail parties?

Bob: Hi, I am Bob from accounting.
Jake: Nice to me you Bob. I am Jake, and I watch chimps throw shit at people at the zoo.
Bob: That is really interesting, now if you'll excuse me I need to go rearrange my sock drawer.

And what did we learn kids? Well, we learned that Chimps that throw shit are good communicators, and that when they throw shit at us they are communicating. Really. Did we really need an MRI to find that out? Do we need a team of people to give Chimps a battery of cognitive tests for shit throwing?

If one went back a hundred years and asked a man on the street I bet he probably could have come up with a suitable answer. Even before the MRI and the batteries of cognitive tests. Why do Chimps throw shit at us Harry? Well maybe they are trying to tell us something. Just maybe. But now we know for sure.

[Snipe]

I agree, many programs are "wasteful", but this report adds up to 6.9 billion, (I'm not sure if that's per year or just what they've found overall) and it goes on to say that each day 2.5 billion is added to our debt. Is this an illustration of the whole problem, or just a distraction that is meant to add fuel to the partisan fire? IMO, the enormity of the spending/revenue problem is way beyond the scope of this report. It has to do with the world economy becoming more competitive while multi-nationals seek the lowest denominator in terms of employees.

You know what they say, a billion here and a billion there and pretty soon you are talking real money. Compared the the total budget though it does seem to be chimp change.

You can use the rest of the budget to justify any other part of the budget with that logic.

[TheRunningMan]

I agree, many programs are "wasteful", but this report adds up to 6.9 billion, (I'm not sure if that's per year or just what they've found overall) and it goes on to say that each day 2.5 billion is added to our debt. Is this an illustration of the whole problem, or just a distraction that is meant to add fuel to the partisan fire? IMO, the enormity of the spending/revenue problem is way beyond the scope of this report. It has to do with the world economy becoming more competitive while multi-nationals seek the lowest denominator in terms of employees.

I don't think it's meant to be taken incredibly seriously, but rather just a way to look at the ridiculousness of the system. I don't know anything about the senator who published it myself, nor would I take the time to do any research. Personally I have given up on the system, I have let it defeat me and I just don't care anymore.

I was just throwing it out there because of some of the ridiculousness that is included in it. In the end it gave me a laugh, because this is what those clowns do, have there pockets lined and then they approve some crap because there friends are involved.

[Kahns Krazy]

That report itself was a waste of money.

it is really difficult to take a lot of government spending out of context and have it make any sense. Generally, I don't think a federal subsidy of a Mellow Mushroom makes a lot of sense, but I have no idea why it qualified, or what program it was under. Without that information, it's very hard to pass judgement on the wastefulness of the spending.

[pizza delivery]

You know what they say, a billion here and a billion there and pretty soon you are talking real money. Compared the the total budget though it does seem to be chimp change.

You can use the rest of the budget to justify any other part of the budget with that logic.

I'm not against cutting wasteful spending, but you're 3/365ths of the way to a balanced budget with this report. That's my only point.