Hamsters on Steroids and ‘Romantic’ Parrots Part of Rand Paul’s ‘Festivus’ Report of $482 Billion Wasted Federal Spending

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) speaks during a hearing with the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions committee on Capitol Hill in Washington on Feb. 3, 2021. Anna Moneymaker/Pool/Getty Images

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) recently released “The Festivus Report 2022” detailing what he considers the wasteful spending policies of the Biden administration, including large interest payments on debts, COVID-19 funds granted to ineligible individuals, maintaining empty federal buildings, and more.

“Last Festivus, we lamented over the national debt reaching an astronomical $28.4 trillion. Shockingly, in one short year, the career politicians and bureaucrats in Washington have managed to breeze right past $30 trillion without so much as a second thought,” Paul said in the report (pdf).

“This year, I am highlighting a whopping $482,276,543,907 of waste, including a steroid-induced hamster fight club, a study to see if kids love their pets, and a study of the romantic patterns of parrots.”

According to Paul, he largest wasted spending was the interest payments made by the Department of Treasury, which amounted to $475 billion alone in fiscal year 2022.

Back when Congress bailed out banks during the 2008 financial crisis, it spent around $700 billion. “Now, we’re shelling out just about that much without getting a single thing back for it, and not blinking an eye!” he said.

Paul also criticized the “big government politicians in Congress” who spent $3.5 trillion on the Inflation Reduction Act, which he says will do nothing to combat rising inflation rates.

To make matters worse, the “same big spenders” have teamed up to pass the $1.9 trillion omnibus spending package for 2023, he stated.

Government Spending

After the Treasury’s interest payments, the next largest wasteful spending on Paul’s list was the $4.5 billion that the Small Business Administration disbursed to sole proprietors and independent contractors as part of the Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) grants.

Both independent contractors and sole proprietors were not entitled to receive this money “based on established policy.” A report from last year found that out of the 117,135 emergency EDIL grants recognized as having a high potential of improper payment, 38.3 percent were identified as “potential fraud risks.”

At the third sport is the $1.7 billion the federal government spent to maintain empty buildings, which totaled 77,000 as of 2016.

If the General Services Administration (GSA) wants to sell a vacant building, it cannot get rid of the property immediately. The GSA must first allow other federal agencies to use it.

If the agencies do not want the building, the property has to be leased to state governments, local governments, nonprofits, or other institutions to use it for public benefit. This means that the ultimate selling process can keep extending and the taxpayer ends up paying these costs.

The U.S. government spent over $210 million on “basic education” projects in Jordan, $168 million on helping illegal immigrants avoid deportation, and $140 million from COVID relief funds to build an 11,000-square-foot spa.

Bizarre Spending

There are also a few cases where the government has spent money on strange things. The National Science Foundation spent $118,971 on studying whether Thanos could snap his fingers while wearing the Infinity Gauntlet.

Thanos is a villain from Marvel Studios who snapped his fingers while wearing the gauntlet to wipe out half the life in the universe.

The study found that “wearing metal gloves while attempting to snap does not generate enough friction between one’s fingers to successfully create a snap,” according to the report.

The Department of Health and Human Services granted $689,222 to Cornell University to study the behavior of parrots, including whether the birds kiss each other and how the males make sexual advances. The study aimed to use parrot behavior as a model for human communication in neuroscience research.

The government also spent $2.3 million to inject beagle puppies with cocaine, $3 million to watch hamsters fight on steroids, $519,828 to use mice in studying racial aggression, and $187,500 to verify that children love their pets.