Thread by @RandPaul

I’m back with some more holiday cheer...I mean #Festivus grievances!

Take Congress...PLEASE! They have really outdone themselves this year with the massive special interest giveaway disguised as a relief bill. It is a disgrace in both the level of spending and the process they used to try to sneak it through. But this week’s pork-a-thon isn’t new.

My #Festivus Waste Report is now an unfortunate Holiday tradition, though a shameful one, if most legislators had any shame. Why? This one report details $54 BILLION in wasted spending.

The average taxpayer pays around $10,000 in taxes. That means they set the taxes of 5,471,368 people on fire this year. And that’s just want we could document in one little report, and doesn’t come close to counting the unconstitutional things Congress spends on.

What would $54 billion dollars of taxpayer money have funded if we had tried to use it properly? One example, it would have built 456,221 miles of road.

It would have built TWO entire border walls with Mexico...

It could have funded the Department of the Treasury for three years, not that we really want to spend that much at Treasury.

Speaking of Treasury, I see Joe Biden says he intends to nominate Janet Yellen, former chair of the Federal Reserve to run the treasury. Talk about letting the fox in the henhouse. AUDIT THE FED! AUDIT THE TREASURY! AUDIT YELLEN AND BIDEN!! AUDIT EVERYTHING!

Ok, now that I got that off my chest, back to the waste report.

So this year, while the petty tyrants in many of our states closed the schools (against all science), Congress said oh, we can do better than that. So they spent $25 MILLION to teach English to rural, unemployed Romanians.

They also spent $36 million to study why hair turns gray. I have a few theories on that, and they all have to do with being in the U.S. Senate with people who vote for the things in this waste report.

They spent $1.5m to get Eastern Mediterranean kids to stop smoking hookah. Then they said hey, let’s go all out, and snuck a bunch of new rules about shipping vape products in the omnibus bill this week.

They spent $3m to interview San Franciscans about edible cannabis use. Really. They must not have spent a lot of time around people who love cannabis. You do NOT need to pay them to talk about it.

What’s next, government funding to get people to post more about their CrossFit and Keto programs?

The government is never content to just waste money normally. They have to really put their shoulders into it. So this year, the Defense Department spent $1 BILLION in funds intended for Covid relief on unrelated acquisitions.

In my favorite WTF moment of the #Festivus Waste report: Your government spent $4.5 million to spray alcoholic rats with bobcat urine.

I do this all day long, and I swear to God I don’t even know what that means.

Your betters have spent a lot of this year reminding you the rules don’t apply to them. French Laundry dinners. Traveling for holidays while promoting restrictions for you, the stories seem to come up all the time

It came up in the bill this week too when they spent $20 million to rebuild a runway for private planes on Nantucket.

Speaking of what they petty tyrants do for themselves, I would like to congratulate Governor Whitmer of Michigan on her new role as Head of Hogwarts.

I wonder if her husband is still on the naughty list for trying to violate her lockdown rules... freep.com/story/news/loc…

We could sit here all day and talk about petty tyrants both thinking they should run your life, and then thinking the rules don’t apply to them. No one in government who shut down a business lost a paycheck. Think about that.

They have no skin in the game. Close the schools? No problem? Close your restaurant? Don’t worry. Here’s $600.

These are also the same type of people who have been telling you for YEARS to sneeze and cough into your elbow, then during Covid, told you to tap elbows instead of shaking hands.

They’re the same people who think that COVID must spread after 10pm only, or that it makes sense to mandate a mask to enter a restaurant, only to take it off 10 feet later at your table.

One of the things both the waste and the actions of petty tyrants should show us — DO NOT BLINDLY TRUST those in power. Think for yourselves. Protect your freedom.

I would be remiss if I didn’t talk for a minute about my friend President Trump.

I have met with him, golfed with him, and been on Air Force One. I’ve had meals with him (he orders). Everyone asks me how well he listens to me, and I tell them I hope so, but its not clear because I’m not sure I’ve gotten a word in yet.

This is a holiday made up by a guy from Queens with a dream, a big mouth and a lot fo grievances. It really is the ultimate holiday for my friend the President, and I hope he continues to celebrate it as well as he did last night in his pre-Festivus rant.

He gave some excellent examples of waste we need to stop. I’ve got a few more for you before I sign off today...

The Department of Defense spent $174,000,000.00 supplying drones to the Afghan National Army and then subsequently lost them. Read more here: bit.ly/3hbRKKp

The National Institutes of Health is spending five years and $1,039,544.00 to try to help people get over their fears of going to the dentist. Read more here: bit.ly/3hbRKKp

The National Science Foundation is spending $199,864.00 to see how people cooperate while playing e-sport video games. Read more here: bit.ly/3hbRKKp

U.S. Agency for International Development is spending $10,000,000.00 and 5 years to attempt to improve Zimbabwe’s political process. Read more here: bit.ly/3hbRKKp

That’s all from me for today folks. A lot of waste. A lot of ridiculousness from petty tyrants. A lot of grievances...

But now that we have that all aired, let’s take some time to celebrate the real holidays. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to you and your families. Enjoy a little break if you can, and let’s all pray for a better 2021.