Government Waste or a Wise Investment of Taxpayer Dollars?

(This article is written and researched by Guy Heston, and I am pleased to include it here.)

One of the oft-repeated refrains from my friends on the right is we could get our federal budget balanced if we could just get rid of all this ridiculous, wasteful government spending.  

The late Sen. William Proxmire (D-Wis.) famously handed out Golden Fleece Awards between 1975and 1987 to highlight examples of silly government spending (yes, Democrats are concerned about government waste, too).  He noted in 1975 that the Navy used 64 aircraft to fly 1334 officers to the Tailhook Convention at the Las Vegas Hilton Hotel.  And by 1987 he was still on the military’s case, giving a Golden Fleece to the Army for ringing up a $159,000 bill to plant trees at Fort Belvoir, VA, that died within a year.  “The Army succeeded in treeing the taxpayer this time and should turn over a new leaf,” he said.  After a 12 year hiatus the awards were revived by Taxpayers for Common Sense and are still handed out.

But hold on.  What government spending is silly and what spending is common sense and a sound investment?

Would you say a $250,000 federally funded study on the sex life of the screwworm is a waste?  It turns out said study has helped save the cattle industry billions of dollars by controlling a parasite that attacks cattle.

How about a study of dog urine?  Sounds kind of silly, doesn’t it?  Only the study resulted in a better understanding of human kidney function and improvements for diabetes patients.

And what about that study called “Acoustic Trauma in the Guinea Pig?”  That seems to have waste written all over it, unless of course it resulted in better treatment of early hearing loss in infants, which it did.

The above examples, as noted by reporter Suzy Khimm in The Washington Post (Apr. 26, 2012), were provided by Rep. Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.), who has had just about enough of all this fleece talk.  He has announced the first annual Golden Goose Awards to honor the best of effective federally funded research.  Lest you think this is just another lefty wanting to up the federal deficit, he’s a Blue Dog Democrat and was joined in the announcement of the awards by Rep. Charlie Dent (R-Penn.) and Rep. Robert Dold (R-Ill.)  A rare example of Washington bi-partisanship.

They say they are taking nominations for the award and I’ve got one for them.  The Dept. of Energy (you know, the one Texas Gov. Rick Perry wants to do away with once he remembers its name) recently completed a successful test of extracting natural gas from ice crystals deepunder the permafrost in Alaska.  It’s a big deal because the U.S. Geological Survey believes there is 590 trillion cubic feet of this natural gas, enough to supply the U.S. for years to come and greatly lessen our dependence on foreign oil.  The Dept. of Energy is asking Congress for another $5 million to continue the research and it sounds like a good, common sense investment to me.

Of course we want to ferret out wasteful spending and unnecessary programs.  But we need not look far to find all sorts of examples of government funded research that enriches and lengthens our lives, helps us better understand the management of our planet and results in billions of dollars of profit for the private sector.