These are just some of the examples in a report on government waste from Senator Tom Coburn entitled "Wastebook 2010"
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- $3 million has been granted to researchers at the University of California at Irvine for video game research. This is a study to determine how "emerging forms of communication, including multiplayer computer games and online virtual worlds such as World of Warcraft and Second Life can help organizations collaborate and compete more effectively in the global marketplace."
-$700,000 to the University of New Hampshire to study methane gas emissions from dairy cows.
- $615,000 to the University of California at Santa Cruz so they could digitize photos, T-shirts and concert tickets belonging to the Grateful Dead.
-$239,100 to a professor at Stanford University in order to study how Americans use Internet Dating.
-$216,000 to The National Science Foundation for a study as to whether or not politicians "gain or lose support by taking ambiguous positions."
-$442,340(approx.) to the National Institutes of Health for a study of the behavior of male prostitutes in Vietnam.
-$1 million(approx.) to the Little Rock, New Orleans, Milwaukee and Chicago zoos to create poetry to help raise awareness of environmental issues.
-$175 million to U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs in order to maintain hundreds of buildings that are no longer in use.
- $1.8 million to a "Museum of Neon Signs" in Las Vegas, Nevada.
- $35 million to Medicare for 118 medical clinics that have never even existed.
-$150,000 to the Conservation Commission of Monkton, Vermont for construction of a "critter crossing" that may save the lives of "thousands" of migrating salamanders.
-$440,000 to perform "green energy upgrades" on a building in a California park that has not been used for over 10 years.
- $440,955 to former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, for and office he rarely even visits.
-$5,000 to a Tennessee library to host a series of video game parties.
-$2.5 million to the U.S. Census Bureau for a television commercial during the Super Bowl that was so poorly produced that virtually nobody understood what is was trying to say.
-$137,530 to a professor at Dartmouth University to create a "recession-themed" video game named "Layoff".
-$600,000 to the Minnesota Zoo for development of an online video game called "Wolfquest".
-$60,000 to a pizzeria in Iowa for them to give the pizzeria's facade a more "inviting feel".
-$30,000 to group of farmers to develop a tourist-friendly database of farms that host guests for overnight "haycations".
-$800,000 to the National Institutes of Health for a study on the impact of a "genital-washing program" on men in South Africa.
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That’s a total of $223,175,925.00 of US taxpayers money that our government has spent in 2010. It makes me wonder what we can do to help cut Government waste....
