<p>Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy have their work cut out for them.</p>
<p>The pair is heading up the meme-worthy Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), part of President-elect Donald Trump&#8217;s effort to slash the federal bureaucracy and runaway spending.</p>
<p>Both entrepreneurs have said they&#8217;ll take an aggressive approach with the project, and there is no shortage of places they could start.</p>
<p>The government spends $6.75 trillion a year. Already this year, federal spending has <a href="https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/federal-spending/#:~:text=The%20federal%20government%20spends%20money,)%2C%20resulting%20in%20a%20deficit." target="_blank" rel="noopener">increased</a> by $114 billion. Within that massive amount is a seemingly never-ending list of eyebrow-raising expenditures.</p>
<p>Around $900 billion in wasted taxpayer dollars were <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/barbie-fraud-meth-monkeys-rand-pauls-annual-festivus-report-shows-900-billion-in-government-waste" target="_blank" rel="noopener">counted</a> last year in Senator Rand Paul&#8217;s (R-KY) “Festivus Report,” his annual tally of government waste that highlights glaring and often humorous examples.</p>
<p>Among the bigger expenses, in fiscal year 2023, the Treasury spent $659 billion on just the interest on the national debt, much of that borrowed from China, the report noted.</p>
<p>The Small Business Administration (SBA) spent $200 million on pandemic support to “small business” artists that ended up including big names like Usher, Nickelback, Post Malone, Chris Brown, Smashing Pumpkins, and Lil Wayne, the report said.</p>
<p>Also, fraudsters used the faces of Barbie dolls as profile pictures to apply for the SBA&#8217;s pandemic Paycheck Protection Program, and the program “carelessly approved” the fraudsters and sent them money, the report said.</p>
<p>Another money pit was multiple frivolous National Institutes of Health (NIH) studies involving monkeys.</p>
<p>The NIH paid a local company $33.2 million to care for about 3,000 monkeys on a South Carolina island before they are sent to research labs around the country, the report said.</p>
<p>The NIH also approved funding for researchers to study the sleep habits of monkeys who were given meth in the morning, according to the report.</p>
<p>Another monkey example involved a study focusing on trans-identifying men and HIV. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) spent more than $477,000 on the <a href="https://reporter.nih.gov/search/_yAOVXcZU0aslyTAXPTPVQ/project-details/10307630" target="_blank" rel="noopener">study</a>, which gave male monkeys female hormones to examine how cross-sex hormones might affect the immune systems of trans-identifying men when it comes to HIV.</p>
<p>In another outlandish example, the NIH approved a grant to study Russian cats walking on a treadmill, the report said.</p>
<p>The NIH also funded a $3.8 million study on “COVID-19 misinformation exposure on social media among Black and Rural communities,” the report said.</p>
<p>The U.S. also spent taxpayer dollars boosting tourism in Egypt. The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) approved $6 million for this purpose, according to the report.</p>
<p>The Biden administration spent a whopping $236 billion on “improper payments&#8221; — payments made to the wrong person, in the wrong amount or for the wrong reason, the report said.</p>
<p>The Department of Agriculture spent taxpayer dollars on “cutting- edge” research that measured the rectal temperatures of 16 dogs and found that their fur color did not affect their body temperatures after a hot summer walk, the report said.</p>
<p>On the military side, the Department of Defense destroyed more than $169 million of military equipment simply by leaving it outside, the report said. The Air Force also massively overpaid for soap dispensers, spending $149,072 more than it had to, according to a Defense Department inspector general report.</p>
<p>Many floors of office space sit empty in federal government buildings, a March report <a href="https://perry.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=402694#:~:text=Federal%20government%20agencies%20are%20using,mountain%20of%20unused%20office%20space." target="_blank" rel="noopener">found</a>. Agencies use just 12% of the office space at their headquarters on average.</p>
<p>At one point, Agriculture Department employees <a href="https://www.starnewsonline.com/story/news/2003/07/12/audit-shows-misuse-of-agriculture-credit-cards/30518533007/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">used</a> their government credit cards to pay for things like cars, concert tickets, lingerie, tattoos, and bartender school.</p>
<p>These are just a few examples of the government throwing taxpayer dollars at things that would make many American jaws drop.</p>

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Transgender Monkeys And Barbie Fraud: Here’s Some Of The Government Waste DOGE Could Target