After President Trump requested $5.7 billion to fund the border wall he campaigned on in 2016, Democrats have dug in, refusing to appropriate the funds that the administration says are needed to better manage the flow of immigration across the southern border.
Democrats are not traditionally known for their fiscal rectitude but are being particularly parsimonious over what ultimately amounts to a very small percentage of the federal budget. (In 2018, the feds spent $4.173 trillion overall, meaning the border wall would amount to just 1/10th of 1 percent of current annual federal spending.)
Indeed, these lawmakers have happily funded various projects over the years that cost far more than the border wall — many of which had very questionable value. Below are some examples of wasteful federal spending projects that individually cost more than the proposed border wall (some data courtesy of Citizens Against Government Waste):
“Rural Utility Service.” This program costs taxpayers $8.2 billion/year and has no actual purpose after its original intent — bringing electricity to rural communities — was long ago achieved. It’s now being used to bring broadband access to small communities (usually with populations of less than 20,000). However there’s no indication the “beneficiaries” of this expensive government agency actually appreciate the program and the majority of its projects are not completed on time or within budget.
Sugar Subsidies. America, as Democrats frequently intone, faces a health crisis. What they don’t tell us is that it’s largely of their own making, as Congress subsidizes the production of unhealthy foods like sugar and high-fructose corn syrup. Eliminating sugar subsidies alone would save $6 billion, enough to fund the border wall; it would also have the added benefit of helping curb the nation’s obesity epidemic.
The feds spent $613,634 to boost “intimacy and trust” of transgender women and their male partners (The Washington Free Beason)
The feds spent $5 million paying hipsters to stop smoking and then blog about it (as well as use cool anti-smoking swag — like beer koozies). (Readers Digest)
Northwestern University has received more than $3 million in National Institutes of Health to watch hamster fights. “Some of those experiments involved injecting hamsters with steroids, then putting another hamster in the cage to see if the drugged rodents were more aggressive when protecting their territory. This program has since been halted following protests from animal rights activists,” Readers Digest reports.
The feds spend $1,009,762 training “social justice” math teachers (The Washington Free Beacon)
“The government spent at least $518,000 in federal grants to study how cocaine affects the sexual behavior of Japanese quails,” Readers Digest reports.
The Federal Register is legally required to be printed daily and distributed to Congressional offices despite most never being read and all of the information being available online. Stopping this unnecessary printing would save $1 million a year.