Funny Money
It’s April 15! Do you know what “woke” craziness your tax dollars funded? Every April, millions of Americans bite the bullet, file their taxes, and pray that Uncle Sam puts their hard-earned dollars to good use. Few Americans would imagine their tax dollars going toward transgender treatments for mice. Or promoting DEI values in Lithuania. Or studying honeybees’ behavior on cocaine. We’re not making this up — that’s exactly where they went. What other “woke” insanity has the federal government funded? Divisive so-called “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” (DEI) programs in higher education have been the beneficiaries of tens of millions of dollars of taxpayer dollars annually. The National Institute on Aging gave Rutgers and the University of Michigan $3.7 million to study the long-term effects of “structural racism.” The National Institutes of Health (NIH) awarded the City University of New York (CUNY) a whopping $19 million to create “The New York Center for Minority Health, Equity and Social Justice.” Not too long after, Duke University received $770,000 from the National Cancer Institute to study “Systemic Racism and Biological Embodiment of Risk in Breast Cancer Mortality.” Taxpayer dollars have underwritten the promotion of the progressive LGBTQ agenda and radical gender ideology — both at home and abroad. For example, USAID gave $1.5 million to promote job opportunities for LGBTQ individuals in Serbia, and another $425,622 to help Indonesian coffee companies become more climate and gender friendly. $1.93 million more supported LGBTQ activity in the Western Balkans. And $1 million was shoveled out the door of the State Department to boost French-speaking LGBTQ groups in West and Central Africa. Arguably the most mind-boggling destination of our tax dollars were devoted to subsidizing silly animal studies. One such study, sponsored by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, taught pigeons to gamble using slot machines in “a token-based economy.” Scientists also now know, thanks to your tax dollars, “What makes goldfish feel sexy?” after the National Science Foundation gave $3.6 million to a study entitled, “The Good, the Bad, and the Sexy: How Brain Chemistry Affects Social Judgment.” One NIH-funded study observed the effects of alcohol on zebra finches’ behavior and singing abilities to the tune of nearly $5 million! Another received $10 million to create transgender mice, rats, and monkeys. But that’s not all. If you thought things couldn’t get any crazier, check out these jaw-droppingly wasteful uses of taxpayer funds, courtesy of Rand Paul’s 2024 Festivus Report: TV time in the Middle East! USAID reportedly spent $20 million on a new Sesame Street show in Iraq, while The State Department gave the Royal Film Commission $873,584 for movies in Jordan. Taxes for Tech! The State Department paid a total of $4,840,082 to social media “influencers,” and spent $123,066 to teach Kyrgyzstan youth how to “go viral.” Skate and Break! The National Endowment for the Arts awarded a drag group, the Bearded Ladies Cabaret, $10,000 to support a cabaret show on ice skates focused on climate change, while the State Department allocated $32,596.12 for breakdancing. Honorable mentions include $7,026,689 spent by the federal government on various “magical” projects, including $6,293,820 from the Department of Defense (DOD) on a Magic City Discovery Center and $388,863 from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) toward a podcast entitled, “Magic in the United States.” So next time you’re gaping at inflated grocery prices, budgeting for that new house, or wondering if you can crank one more year out of that busted Jeep, just remember: somewhere, a federal agency might be spending your tax dollars getting pigeons wasted. Government spending doesn’t have to be this ridiculous. The inauguration of President Trump and aggressive auditing by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) seems to be rooting out the more ridiculous and frivolous federal grants. But until the public demands a full divestment from “woke” grants and transparency for the destination of our hard-earned tax dollars, who knows where they might end up next?
