Once Tom Coburn became a fixture in the Senate, the Republican from Oklahoma has dedicated himself to a singular cause: fighting government waste. To that extend, Coburn has been doing his best to name and shame those government projects which he sees to be the height of excess in his annual Wastebook. This year’s round-up of wasteful government spending features The Grateful Dead, poetry at zoos, and World of Warcraft. You can read Wastebook 2010 online.
Coburn’s Wastebook 2010 lineup highlights a staggering $11.5 billion dollars in wasteful spending in this year’s budget. At the University of California at Santa Cruz, grants totaling $615,000 were used to digitize programs, tee-shirts, and ticket stubs for the Grateful Dead museum. University of California at Irvine researchers got a staggering $3 million to play World of Warcraft in an attempt to help, quote, “organizations collaborate and compete more effectively in the global marketplace.”
As Coburn writes, “Even those lucky enough to have jobs have had to tighten their belts. Yet, Congress continues to find new and extravagant ways to waste tax dollars.”
Tags: Tom Coburn, Oklahoma, Republican Senator from Oklahoma, wasteful government spending, Wastebook 2010, Tom Coburn’s Wastebook 2010 compiled, government waste, most wasteful government spending, Senate, wasteful government spending book, list of government pork projects
