The Chronicles of Madness – Episode 48
In our 48th episode of Madness Chronicles, we’ll take a look at the madness of government spending. Remember, insanity is a state of serious mental illness, extremely foolish behavior, and a form of frenzied or chaotic activity. Let’s take a look at some of the most egregious spending in 2020.
We all know that getting older and going gray is a problem. Don’t worry. The extraordinary Congress of him spent $37 million on a study to determine why hair turns gray. Not a word about 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 false.
Congress was right there for Native Americans to spend $58 million on urban Indian healthcare. Are they like urban jeans? Really, how many could there be and why unique healthcare for them? Not to be outdone, the Veterans Administration spent $3.5 billion (with a B) for, 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 messaging moms to stop their daughters from tanning indoors. Wrap your head around it. We spent another $3 million interviewing San Franciscans about their use of edible cannabis. Add to that another $2 million to see if the hot tub reduces stress: our tax dollars at work.
Getting to some big stuff, we spent $1.5 million on a study watching alligators walk on treadmills. Presumably, there was a purpose for this, but we can’t be sure.
We spent another $2 million trying to develop a headset that would record eating habits and patterns. A quick call to Fitbit could have saved a lot of money.
Of course, this is all 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 power it.
The Defense Department lost some equipment destined for Syria to fight ISIS. That was just $715 million. The irony, of course, is that Obama created ISIS, so maybe they tied up the team. Without boobies, FEMA spent $10 million on COVID test tubes. The problem was that they received plastic soda bottles instead. Close only in a game of hand grenades.
Jumping into foreign aid, we spent $38 million to help deal with absentee Filipino youth. I wonder if the absentees are behaving now. By moving to Zimbabwe, we spent $10 million monitoring their elections over the last five years. Maybe that’s why we didn’t see our own choices? Then to Tunisia, where we spent just $48 million to help disconnected youth not feel like a problem to society.
We spent $3.5 million to send Russian children to American universities for their gap year. I’m sure we didn’t have American children who needed help. And that money pit in Afghanistan called. We spent $8.6 billion on anti-drug efforts. That’s probably confusing to the US military that served there. You see, they were forbidden to bomb drug trucks that were driving at night. True story.
Our nation is hopelessly in debt and Congress continues to spend like drunken monkeys with an American Express card. We spend money on training theater artists in Kenya and on plays in Bombay. 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’s too late. I wish you good health and until next time, have fun, enjoy life and beware of the madness among us. it’s 2020; Look around; It is scandalous