Sen. Jeff Flake introduced the latest edition of the Wastebook on Tuesday, which this year has taken a Pokémon GO! theme.
Sen. Jeff Flake currently decrying wasteful spending with a "Pork-emon Go" poster. Most ambitious pun since HRC's "Pokemon Go-to-the-Polls"
— Matt Flegenheimer (@mattfleg) January 10, 2017
Look at the cover art for @JeffFlake's book of wasteful government projects. "Porkémon Go" pic.twitter.com/3rC0a9x697
— Joe Perticone (@JoePerticone) January 10, 2017
— Mary Katharine Ham (@mkhammer) January 10, 2017
@mkhammer @mattfleg we should really pikachoose what we spend our Chingling on ?
— sja (@sja717407) January 10, 2017
Old-school Nintendo fans should find this year’s logo pretty familiar, and followers of government waste will also feel nostalgic.
"Hopefully this report will be a guide to catch egregious spending lurking in the federal budget.” –@JeffFlake https://t.co/eO68kBE6t8 pic.twitter.com/d7QRc1rCiW
— Foundation2Restore (@RestoreAccount) January 10, 2017
Remember that compelling “Shrimp on a Treadmill” study from a few years back? It must have gone well, because this time $1.5 million went toward studying the endurance of the mudskipper fish by placing it on a treadmill.
Oh, and there was the $3.4 million “Hamster Cage Match,” a study of aggression and anxiety in rodents. Where is PETA?
Fish on a treadmill, hamster fighting, and a sculpture that makes people sick. @JeffFlake's latest #Wastebook https://t.co/eO68kBE6t8 pic.twitter.com/9gRNHmx5xX
— Foundation2Restore (@RestoreAccount) January 10, 2017
"The money was used to pay for a giant glow-in-the-dark doobie" – now showing on the U.S. Senate floor pic.twitter.com/xDHESWCMn6
— Andy Kroll (@AndyKroll) January 10, 2017
That $35,000 joint commissioned by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration was intended to educate drivers about the dangers of driving while high.
Giant joint, treadmill for fish highlight 'Wastebook 2016' https://t.co/pbvfF6QmTe pic.twitter.com/oeIjDhZoMz
— Dan Lopez (@4danlopez) January 10, 2017
#Wastebook Unreal! Romantic monkeys, drunk college kids, peanuts? ?
— American Suz ?? (@TrumpSisters) January 10, 2017
And speaking of doing things while high, other projects featured in the Wastebook include a museum that would resurrect dead comedians as holograms and a study in which computers binge-watched “Desperate Housewives.”
Your taxes pay for a computer that binge-watches Desperate Housewives. New Govt Wastebook is out @ 10am.WEBCAST LIVE https://t.co/YWaQruxAZk
— John Stossel (@JohnStossel) January 10, 2017
Not all of the wasteful projects cited were humorous, though; take, for example, the IRS’s $12 million email archiving system that it couldn’t use. The Daily Caller notes that:
“…the agency’s inability helped [Lois] Lerner get off the hook for using the IRS to target conservative and Tea Party nonprofit applicants during the 2010 and 2012 campaigns.
Soon after the Lerner scandal, IRS officials bought the system designed to prevent the loss of emails, but then didn’t bother to turn it on. They also broke federal procurement rules in how they bought the system.
Grab your own copy in PDF format here.
