So many in need, yet so much goes to 'Waste'

Merry Christmas, and a happy New Year in the coming days.

It’s that time on the calendar again when our minds and hearts turn to giving and helping. But the Cheney Free Press Editorial Board could not help but wonder how much more we all might be able to help those less fortunate, and maybe add to our own economy, if we had a little fatter wallet.

Perhaps that comes from the savings realized next year by not building a gas station in Afghanistan that pumps only compressed natural gas and cost $43 million of Department of Defense money. Are there really cars in that country?

The Afghan filling station was just one of 100 things outlined in the 2015 edition of the Congressional “Waste Book” that is published each year in early December.

The publication was developed over the years by retired Oklahoma Republican Sen., Dr. Tom Coburn, but is now compiled by Sen. Jeff Flake, a fellow Republican from Arizona. And it’s spawned other similar books that dig into government spending of all types.

Some estimates have pegged waste in the government spending at about 15 percent. With a requested budget at the federal level of $3.34 trillion for fiscal year 2016, the money burning equates to over $500 billion. Anyone care to calculate the zeros?

Maybe then we’d have a hair on fire moment where WE were burning up the phone lines and clogging congressional emails asking why the US Agency for International Development is spending $2.1 million to promote tourism to Lebanon, despite a State Department warning asking Americans not to go there?

It’s sometimes said one person’s pork is another’s economic development.

Is that what you call the New York National Institute of Drug Abuse receiving $780,000 to study if pizza is as addictive as crack cocaine?

The truly sad thing is a study like this gets that kind of money when during the “government shutdown” of 18 days from Sept. 30 – Oct. 17 — which in essence was just the loss of a smidgeon of services — programs like local Meals on Wheels that benefits so many fixed-income seniors, somehow lost funding.

In Cheney 150 families were helped by the efforts of local charities, thankfully down from nearly 200 in 2014. But while donations for some charitable causes show some downward trends imagine how many people could have been helped if an Illinois study was not given $276,000 to figure out how a less attractive person can attract someone more attractive?

But if you thought the Deptartment of Defense spent frivolously with its gas station, how about $6.8 million with various pro sports to promote displays of patriotism at events? You think the NFL, the most profitable nonprofit on the planet needs our help?

Wealthy donors at the University of Washington pony up millions to help make their football coach, Chris Petersen, the highest paid employee in the state. So you still think we taxpayers need to help them to the tune of $1.3 million with a National Science Foundation grant for some department to study how a can koozie keeps a beverage cold?

Or how about the Environmental Protection Agency’s spending $8 million on cleanup of mine waste adjacent to the Animas River and in doing so — despite being warned against it — triggered a flood of toxic gunk that will take untold more millions to mitigate?

And speaking of pork, is there a reason a government sponsored board paid the National Pork Producers $3 million to retire “The Other White Meat,” slogan they used for years, replacing it with, “Pork: Be inspired.” (Huh?).

The content of the “Waste Book” is as eye-rolling comical as it is stomach-turning disgusting.

As we often do this time of year offering suggestions for New Year’s resolutions for the greater good, how about one we make Congress abide by, such as insisting they at least begin to cut into fat we see on display in the “Waste Book?”

The full 2015 “Waste Book” can be viewed at:

http://www.flake.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=f43be9dc-0d84-4386-b935-7613aaf12e52