Senator Releases Annual ‘Festivus Report’ Chronicling $1 Trillion in Government Waste

by Zachary Mettler | December 26, 2024 | Government Updates

U.S. Senator Rand Paul, R-Ky., has released his annual “Festivus Report” laying out how the federal government wasted over $1 trillion in 2024 alone.

“The Festivus Report 2024” is Sen. Paul’s 10th annual report; it found the government wasted $1,008,313,329,626.12 this year.

The senator’s report is a play on Festivus, a secular holiday celebrated on December 23. It includes an “airing of grievances” and was popularized in 1997 by the television show “Seinfeld.” The senator uses the opportunity to express his objections to the federal government’s wasteful spending.

Sen. Paul wrote in this year’s report,

Last Festivus, we bemoaned the national debt nearing $34 trillion. In just a year, Washington’s career politicians and bureaucrats have managed to push it beyond $36 trillion – unsurprisingly, with hardly a second thought. …
And our mountain of debt will continue to pile even higher. The Congressional Budget Office predicts we will add an average of $2.1 trillion in debt annually for the next decade. According to a July House Budget Committee Report, the U.S. government will add over $6.4 billion of debt every single day for the next ten years, borrowing over $268 million every hour, $4.5 million every minute, and over $74,401 every second.

That’s a lot of cash! And obviously, this is far from sustainable. Indeed, our nation’s debt is greater than the size of our entire economy, which is worth $27.36 trillion annually.

But the story gets worse when you find how exactly the government wasted so much money in 2024. According to the report,

  • The government spent $10 billion on maintaining, leasing and furnishing almost entirely empty buildings.
  • The Department of the Interior wasted $12 million on a Las Vegas Pickleball Complex.
  • The Department of State paid $330,000 to censor non-liberal and conservative media.
  • The Department of Health and Human Services spent $419,470 to determine if lonely rats seek cocaine more than happy rats.
  • The Department of Energy wasted $15.5 billion to force Americans to buy electric vehicles.
  • The National Endowment of the Arts spent $365,000 to promote circuses in city parks.
  • The Department of State blew through $3 million for “girl-centered climate action” in Brazil.
  • The government wasted $892 billion – yes, billion – on interest on the national debt.
  • The Department of State paid $345,434 on football engagement to counter terrorism.
  • The Department of Agriculture expended $20 million on the Fertilizer Right Initiative to advance fertilizer use in Pakistan, Vietnam, Colombia and Brazil.

And there’s plenty more waste to be found in the report (like $2.1 million for Paraguayan Border Security).

In part because of our government’s wasteful spending, every American taxpayer is on the hook for $271,191 as their share of our national debt. Yikes!

After President-elect Donald J. Trump was reelected for a second, non-consecutive term, he announced the creation of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) which will be led by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy. The department will be tasked by the president with cutting government waste.

The president-elect said in a statement,

These two wonderful Americans will pave the way for my Administration to dismantle Government Bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies.
We will drive out the massive waste and fraud which exists throughout our annual $6.5 Trillion Dollars of Government Spending.

Elon Musk has said he thinks DOGE can help cut at least $2 trillion in annual government expenditures. If achieved, that would hopefully mean far less money flowing into Uncle Sam’s bank account and far more money remaining in the American people’s pockets.

Proverbs 22:7 says, “The rich rules over the poor, and the borrower is the slave of the lender” (ESV).

With our national debt exceeding $36 trillion, our government has made slaves of us all. In fact, the average American taxpayer works for the federal government nearly four months per year to pay their tax bill.

With DOGE on the horizon, we hope and pray fiscal sanity will soon make a return to our nation’s bloated and profligate government.

Related articles and resources:

Senator Releases Report Chronicling Waste of $900 Billion Taxpayer Dollars in 2023

Taxpayer Money for Beagle Puppies, Romancing Parrots, and Fighting Hamsters, Oh My!

$1.5 Million to Walk Lizards on Treadmills? Ten Crazy Things Uncle Sam Spent Your Money on This Year

Photo from Getty Images.

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