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Sexual Habits of Quails and Daydreaming: Rand Paul Reveals Most Ridiculous Gov't Waste of 2018

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Just in time to wrap up the outgoing year, Sen. Rand Paul last week gave the country a Festivus airing of grievances on Twitter involving all of the stuff the government wasted money on in 2018.

The Kentucky Republican isn’t just one of the upper chamber’s most notable budget hawks, he’s also one of the funnier lawmakers in office, and it shows on social media. On Sunday, he turned his Twitter feed over to the absurdities of government waste (along with a few choice memes to go with the extended rant).

“GOOD MORNING! Welcome to everyone’s favorite holiday, #Festivus!” Paul tweeted. “I’ve got a lot of problems with you people, and now you’re gonna hear about them!”

Along with some great “Seinfeld” GIFs, he also had a lot of grievances to air.

His first grievance was “against the entire foreign policy establishment of Washington DC, who 2 years ago were swearing that Donald Trump was going to start multiple nuclear wars or something. Now they are mad because he is STOPPING two wars. How about you just admit you hate the President, love war and have been wrong for the last 20 years on every part of foreign policy?”

Do you think the government wastes too much money?

After a little while, however, Paul got to profligate spending on useless government projects.

“One of the things I hate most about Washington is that they have literally NO IDEA how to spend your money. That’s why I do waste reports, and do a FESTIVUS WASTE REPORT with some of the worst offenders of the year,” he tweeted.

One of the worst offenders: A study involving the sexual habits of coked-up quail.

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I’m not quite sure what this accomplished that following around the Gallagher brothers from the English rock band Oasis for a day or two wouldn’t have, given that the Gallaghers seem to have both the intelligence of small passerines and an inveterate affinity for Colombia’s second-most famous exported stimulant. But that wouldn’t have cost you and me the better part of $1,000,000.

That’s pretty cheap, however, when you consider how much we spent promoting tourism. But sure, you have to spend money to make money, right?

Well, the problem is that the tourism we’re promoting is in Egypt:

If you, like the Monkees’ Davy Jones, are a daydream believer, I have good news for you: There’s a government program studying that, too.

And then finally, there was the cheapest project, which clocked in at well under $100,000. That doesn’t sound bad until you consider exactly what the money was spent on:

I’m done.

“So of course, instead of fixing waste like this and reforming government, the geniuses in Congress decided to have a fight over how much MORE money they were going to ‘spend’ aka borrow from China,” Paul tweeted.

“Speaking of which, buried in the foreign aid reports last year, I discovered something — we give foreign aid to China. So government is so dumb, it is literally borrowing money from China, to give it back to China, while paying interest on it.”

Paul has a fuller Festivus waste report at his Senate website, which includes a whopping $76 million (!) for stipends to the Somali army and $200,000 to put on dramatic works in Afghanistan.

It is, indeed, a Festivus for the rest of us — at least those of us who are sick of government waste.

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C. Douglas Golden is a writer who splits his time between the United States and Southeast Asia. Specializing in political commentary and world affairs, he's written for Conservative Tribune and The Western Journal since 2014.
C. Douglas Golden is a writer who splits his time between the United States and Southeast Asia. Specializing in political commentary and world affairs, he's written for Conservative Tribune and The Western Journal since 2014. Aside from politics, he enjoys spending time with his wife, literature (especially British comic novels and modern Japanese lit), indie rock, coffee, Formula One and football (of both American and world varieties).
Birthplace
Morristown, New Jersey
Education
Catholic University of America
Languages Spoken
English, Spanish
Topics of Expertise
American Politics, World Politics, Culture




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