“The time has come for your public servants to bring spending down into line with tax revenues. No matter how much more tax money comes to Washington, it won’t amount to a hill of beans if government won’t curb its endless appetite to spend.” – President Ronald Reagan’s 1985 address

The Department of Health and Human Services takes 25.4% of the total federal fiscal spending due to Medicare and Medicaid costs.

The Social Security Administration makes up about 22.4% of the budget, while the Treasury Department takes up 19.5%.

The Department of Defense accounts for 13.5% of federal fiscal spending, followed by Veterans Affairs at 4.8% and the Department of Education at 4%.

It is widely reported in the media that the U.S. government spends wastefully a significant amount of money annually on unnecessary projects.

According to Senator Rand Paul’s 2024 “Festivus” Report, approximately $1 trillion was identified as wasteful spending in FY2024.

Examples include $4.8 million spent by the U.S. Federal government on Ukrainian influencers and $6 million to promote tourism in Egypt.

Additionally, the Government Accountability Office estimates that between $233 billion and $521 billion is lost annually to fraud and inefficiencies.

Other reports highlight specific waste, such as $20 billion annually on ineffective animal testing and $247 billion wasted in 2023 due to improper payments and inefficiencies (Source: perplexity.ai).

Here are some bizarre examples of government waste (Source: perplexity.ai):
• Massaging Rabbits: The NIH spent $387,000 to provide Swedish massages to rabbits as part of a research project.
• Fish on Treadmills: The National Science Foundation allocated $1.5 million to study the endurance of mudskipper and bluegill fish on treadmills.
• Mountain Lions on Treadmills: Another NSF project spent $856,000 training mountain lions to use treadmills to study their energy use while hunting.
• Responsible Drinking for Chinese Prostitutes: The federal government spent $2.6 million on a campaign to encourage Chinese prostitutes to drink responsibly.
• Guantanamo Soccer Field: $750,000 was spent to build a soccer field for inmates at Guantanamo Bay.
• IHOP Construction: The Department of Health and Human Services provided $500,000 to build an IHOP in Washington, D.C., ostensibly to create jobs.

“Keep your eye on one thing and one thing only: how much government is spending, because that’s the true tax. If you’re not paying for it in the form of explicit taxes, you’re paying for it indirectly in the form of inflation or in the form of borrowing” – Milton Friedman