Joe Biden’s Not Done Increasing Inflation With Debt-Fueled Federal Spending

Only one week after announcing student ‘loan forgiveness’ that could cost more than $1 trillion, the Biden administration proposed yet more federal spending.

Rand Paul's 2021 'Festivus Report' documents $52 billion in gov't waste — including money for 'pigeons playing slot machines' and a study verifying 'kids crave junk food'



Republican Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.) on Wednesday released his annual "Festivus Report," this year reportedly uncovering a whopping $52 billion in wasted federal government dollars — which he said went towards things like a study on gambling that paid for pigeons to play slot machines and another study verifying that, yes, kids crave junk food.

Paul, a fiscal conservative who chairs the Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Spending Oversight, has released his annual government waste reports for seven years. And each year, it seems the government comes up with more and more outrageous ways to spend taxpayer money.

"You’d almost think the government’s annual New Year Resolution is to spend more and more money," Paul said in this year's report before highlighting the worst abuses, which included $549 million on planes for the troops in Afghanistan that the Department of Defense later threw away and $25 million for New York City to display art projects around town.

Elsewhere in the report, Paul said that the U.S. Agency for International Development spent $11.3 million, in part, to request that Vietnamese citizens stop burning their trash. The federal government also reportedly donated $14 million to the Wilson Center — a Washington think tank known for putting on parties for members of Congress — while most other nonprofits received nothing.

Amazingly, even while the Biden administration stopped border wall construction at home, Paul said the federal government saw fit to give the Department of Defense $250 million to build border walls in the Middle East and North Africa.

The aforementioned pigeon slot machine study reportedly used just over $465,000 in taxpayer dollars that were provided to the Reed College of Portland by the National Institutes of Health. The junk food study was put on by the University at Buffalo. It spent $361,000 awarded by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases and confirmed that kids not only crave junk food but are subject to weight gain when continuously exposed to it.

Another study funded in part by the National Institute on Aging (NIA) reportedly used approximately $1.3 million over 5 years to study how hearing good or bad news affects happiness.

Paul noted, however, that the bulk of the money — over $40 billion — was wasted on COVID-19 relief programs such as “improper CARES Act unemployment insurance payments" and “bad loans out of the Paycheck Protection Program."

“It seems like just yesterday the national debt was $20 trillion, but now the U.S. has managed to breeze past $28 trillion, spending and wasting more than we ever have,” Paul said in a statement to the Daily Wire. “While some in Washington insist on recklessly spending your taxpayer dollars, I will continue to shed light on some of the most egregious examples of government waste, and fight against excessive federal spending.”

GOP rep exposes wasteful spending in Democrats' stimulus bill by proposing $10,000 stimulus checks



Prior to House Democrats passing their massive $1.9 trillion stimulus package early Saturday, Republican Rep. Paul Gosar (Ariz.) introduced an amendment increasing the stimulus check amount to $10,000 for individuals and $20,000 for married couples.

The proposed amendment was meant to highlight the wasteful spending on items completely unrelated to coronavirus-related relief.

What happened?

Gosar's amendment proposed eliminating 10 sections from the legislation that used taxpayer money to fund items unrelated to COVID relief.

Specifically, Gosar sought to eliminate spending for:

  • Farm loan assistance for socially disadvantaged farmers and ranchers
  • National Endowment for the Arts
  • National Endowment for the Humanities
  • Institute of Museum and Library Services
  • So-called "Vaccine confidence activities"
  • "Global health" initiatives
  • Family planning
  • Capital investment grants
  • National Railroad Passenger Corporation grants
  • Special financial assistance program for financially troubled multi-employer plans

The billions of dollars saved by eliminating funding for such non-COVID related items should be given back to struggling Americans in the form of increased stimulus checks, Gosar said.

In fact, Gosar explained on Twitter that "only 9% of Pelosi's $1.9 trillion 'plan' is related to COVID-19."

"I offered an amendment to prioritize $10,000 stimulus checks to Americans most affected by COVID-19 and lockdowns," the Arizona Republican said.

"Instead, Democrats chose foreign aid, Big Tech transit, and Pelosi's political priorities over direct relief to American citizens," he added.

"Governement (sic) ordered the shutdown and broke the back of the economy. Break it, buy it," Gosar said. "Americans need help with car payments, mortgage, rent, and everyday necessities. The people, not government, corporations, or billionaires, need this help."

Only 9% of Pelosi’s $1.9 trillion “plan” is related to COVID-19.I offered an amendment providing $10k stimulus to… https://t.co/KQBLLT4G86
— Rep. Paul Gosar, DDS (@Rep. Paul Gosar, DDS)1614465001.0

Did the amendment pass?

The amendment was rejected by Democrats, who ultimately passed their stimulus bill.

The $1.9 trillion legislation includes the controversial federal minimum wage hike, which the Senate parliamentarian has already ruled cannot be included in the Senate version of the bill if it should be passed in the upper chamber through the budget reconciliation process.

Two Democrats ultimately crossed party lines and voted against the bill: Reps. Jared Golden (Maine) and Kurt Schrader (Ore.).

Golden later explained that he voted against the bill because of the wasteful spending unrelated to COVID relief.

"This bill addresses urgent needs, and then buries them under a mountain of unnecessary or untimely spending," Golden said. "In reviewing the bill in its full scope, less than 20 percent of the total spending addresses core COVID challenges that are immediately pressing: funding for vaccine distribution and testing, and emergency federal unemployment programs."

Trump reveals plan that forces Congress to re-examine 'wasteful spending,' boost stimulus payments



President Donald Trump announced late Sunday that he would sign the massive $2.3 trillion bill passed by Congress last week that combines government funding and coronavirus relief.

However, Trump added a major caveat: He plans to use a little-known law to request that Congress eliminate "wasteful spending" from the bill and boost stimulus payments from $600 to $2,000 for individuals and $5,200 for families of four.

What did Trump say?

"I will sign the Omnibus and Covid package with a strong message that makes clear to Congress that wasteful items need to be removed," Trump announced.

Trump explained, however, that he is using the Impoundment Control Act of 1974 to promptly return the bill to Congress.

"I will send back to Congress a redlined version, item by item, accompanied by the formal rescission request to Congress insisting that those funds be removed from the bill," Trump explained. "I am signing this bill to restore unemployment benefits, stop evictions, provide rental assistance, add money for PPP, return our airline workers back to work, add substantially more money for vaccine distribution, and much more."

Trump also promised that Congress will review Section 230, an archaic internet law that protects internet companies from liability when they censor users, regardless of whether the content is otherwise constitutionally protected.

Trump claimed Section 230 "unfairly benefits Big Tech at the expense of the American people" and will be "terminated or substantially reformed."

What is the Impoundment Control Act of 1974?

As Trump explained:

As president I am demanding many rescissions under the Impoundment Control Act of 1974. The Act provides that, "whenever the president determines that all or part of any budget authority will not be required to carry out the full objectives or scope of programs for which it is provided, or that such budget authority should be rescinded for fiscal policy or other reasons (including termination of authorized projects or activities for which budget authority has been provided), the president shall transmit to both Houses of Congress a special message" describing the amount to be reserved, the relevant accounts, the reasons for the rescission, and the economic effects of the rescission. 2 U.S.C. § 683.

The law essentially allows the president to request that Congress rescind appropriated budget funds.

The act was passed in response to Richard Nixon's budget abuses in which he outright refused funding for government programs that he opposed.

The act, then, means Congress can reject the president's rescission request, as it has done in most instances since the law was passed.

Will Congress bite?

As TheBlaze reported, both Republican and Democratic lawmakers are pushing for $2,000 stimulus payments — and they hope to approve such economic relief quickly.

However, House Democrats are much less likely to approve Trump's line-item requests to eliminate "wasteful spending."