Festivus is one of those goofy, invented T.V. sitcom-generated holidays where the punchline is the airing of grievances.

Which brings us to Rand Paul, who's taken the empty holiday space for news, to inform us about the government waste going on, on Joe Biden's spendathon watch:

1. Improper CARES Act unemployment insurance payments $36,000,000,000
2. COVID relief grant for NYC to display art projects across the city $25,000,000
3. Tax Credit incentivizing CA residents to uninstall fireplaces $2,100,000
4. Pigeons playing slot machines (NIH) $465,339

— Senator Rand Paul (@RandPaul) December 23, 2021

His list is actually longer, it's quite a long series of tweets.

According to Fox News:

Paul’s office identified $52,598,515,585 what it sees as waste, including money spent on "a study of pigeons gambling on slot machines, giving kids junk food, and telling citizens of Vietnam not to burn their trash," according to a statement. 

Fox News in its lead rather overdelicately described Paul's list as "what it sees as waste," as if other people might think otherwise. In general, what on earth were they thinking? Billions in stolen COVID relief is a matter of opinion? One thief's profit is a government thief's loss? Of course, it's cash wasted; only a leftist could think otherwise.

Now, Paul is not the first to be doing one of these government waste lists. Sen. William Proxmire, in his heydey, made these kinds of lists famous, an example of a good senator performing the oversight that his job requires. Paul is carrying on the tradition and that's a good thing.

The big takeaway we can get from this list is that these numbers are getting big. That's on Joe Biden, the fish whose stench moves from the head down through the government. And had his Build Back Better passed in the Senate, the waste and thievery would be greater still. That's Joe Biden and his legacy for you. What needs to happen now is for 2022 to happen, for Republicans with fiscal-mindedness to get in there, and real cuts can be made to ensure these numbers no longer amount to the defense budgets of mid-sized countries.

Thanks, Rand Paul.

Image: Twitter screen shot

To comment, you can find the MeWe post for this article here.