In our 48th episode of Madness Chronicles, we will see the madness of public spending. Remember, insanity is a state of mental illness, gross and extremely foolish behavior, and a form of frenzied or chaotic activity. Let’s take a look at some of the most egregious expenses in 2020.
We all know that getting old and growing gray is a problem. Do not worry. Your extraordinary Congress spent $ 37 million on a study to determine why hair turns gray. It is not known what they found. They spent another $ 32 million to see the effects of e-cigarettes on heart attacks. There were no results because, in the end, the study was found to be bogus.
Congress was there for Native Americans to spend $ 58 million on Indian urban health care. Are they like urban jeans? Really, how many could there be and why a unique medical care for them? Not to be left behind, the Veterans Administration spent $ 3.5 billion (with a B) to get this, orders that are waiting but never delivered. I know it’s overused, but you can’t make these things up.
We spent $ 3.5 million texting Mom to stop indoor tanning for her daughters. Wrap your head around that. We spent another $ 3 million interviewing San Francisco residents about their use of edible cannabis. Add to that another $ 2 million to see if hot baths reduce stress: our tax dollars at work.
Coming to a few big things, we spent $ 1.5 million on a study observing lizards walking on treadmills. Presumably this had a purpose, but we can’t be sure.
We spent another $ 2 million trying to develop headphones that track eating habits and patterns. A quick call to Fitbit could have saved a lot of money.
Of course, this is all a silly change compared to military spending. We spent $ 29 billion (with a B) developing a replacement for the Bradley fighting vehicle. And it might be useful to mention that after decades we still don’t have a replacement.
The Army Corps of Engineers built a state-of-the-art police complex for $ 3.1 million. Good material. It was never used because there was no way to get power.
The Defense Department lost some equipment destined for Syria to fight ISIS. That was only $ 715 million. The irony, of course, is that Obama created ISIS, so maybe they tied up the team. FEMA spent $ 10 million on COVID test tubes, chipping nothing. The problem was that they received plastic soda bottles. Close only in a hand grenade game.
Moving on to foreign aid, we spent $ 38 million to help deal with absent Filipino youth. I wonder if the absentees are behaving now. By moving to Zimbabwe, we spent $ 10 million monitoring their elections for the past five years. Maybe that’s why we didn’t see our own choices? Then to Tunisia, where we spent $ 48 million on a mother to help disconnected youth not feel like a problem in society.
We spent $ 3.5 million sending Russian children to American universities for their ‘gap’ year. I’m sure we were totally out of line with American kids who needed help. And that money pit in Afghanistan called. We spend $ 8.6 billion on anti-drug trafficking efforts. That probably confuses the American military who served there. You see, they were forbidden to bomb the drug trucks that circulated at night. True story.
Our nation is desperately in debt, and Congress continues to spend like drunken monkeys on an American Express card. We spend money training theater artists in Kenya and doing plays in Mumbai. There is no problem that our Congressmen cannot solve with our money and the money of our great-grandchildren in the future. It’s crazy.
May we wake up from this madness before it is too late. I wish you good health, and until next time, have fun, enjoy life, and watch out for the madness between us. It is 2020; Look around; It is outrageous.
