OAN Staff Katherine Mosack
11:06 AM – Wednesday, December 24, 2025
Senator Rand Paul released a report compiling more than $1 trillion in shockingly wasteful government spending over the past year.
The 11th annual “Festivus” report, which came out on Tuesday, found a total of approximately $1,639,135,969,608 in U.S. government waste in 2025, including $1.22 trillion in interest payments.
Paul (R-Ky.), chair of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, remarked in a statement that “no matter how much taxpayer money Washington burns through, politicians can’t help but demand more.”
“Fiscal responsibility may not be the most crowded road, but it’s one I’ve walked year after year — and this holiday season will be no different. So, before we get to the Feats of Strength, it’s time for my Airing of (Spending) Grievances,” he continued.
The Festivus Report 2025 featured an overview of spending trends and cultural moments over the past year.
“Last Festivus, we clamored over the national debt reaching over an astronomical $36 trillion,” it stated. “Shockingly, in one short year, the career politicians and bureaucrats in Washington have managed to reach nearly $40 trillion in debt, without so much as a second thought. When asked who’s to blame for our crushing level of debt, the answer is ‘Everyone.’ This year, Congress voted to raise the debt ceiling by $5 trillion, the most we ever have.”
Highlighted in the report are several questionable investments the federal government has made this year.
Washington’s interest alone cost Americans $1.22 trillion.
Schools received a whopping nearly $200 billion in COVID relief funding, “which was wasted on things like rooms at Caesars Palace (a Las Vegas luxury hotel), renting out MLB stadiums, and ice cream trucks,” the report read.
The Federal Reserve also paid out $187 billion in Interest on Reserve Balances (IORB), the rate the Fed pays banks on the money held in Fed accounts.
Additional spending by the billions includes: The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)’s $22.6 billion on expenses such as furniture, car repairs, home down payments and welfare for illegal immigrants in migrant programs; the Department of Transportation (DOT)’s $7.5 billion from Congress for electric vehicle charging stations during the Biden administration — though only 68 charging stations are running; $1.8 billion from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) for “a shuttle that was six years behind schedule and stranded astronauts in space.”
Moving onto the millions, the Department of War, formerly the Department of Defense (DOD), spent an estimated $77 million on “an unnecessary dolphin training program that Congress won’t let end.”
“The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) gave EcoHealth Alliance $54 million to collect bat coronaviruses and transport them to Wuhan for gain-of-function experiments,” said the report.
Another one of the HHS’s offenses was $40 million that went to influencers persuading ethnic minority groups to get the COVID-19 vaccine.
The HHS spent $6.9 million on analysis of “surgery outcomes in sub-Saharan Africa.”
Northwestern University secured a generous $3.3 million from the HHS to “hire 15 people, to erect ‘scientific neighborhoods,’ install ‘safe space ambassadors,’ and form endless committees to ‘dismantle systemic racism.’” The University of Michigan also received $2.9 million from the HHS to study the effect of screen time on parent-child relationships, which the report called “doomscrolling studies.”
The HHS also spent $2.1 million on the collection of saliva samples at EDM clubs in New York City to study drug usage.
“USAID squandered $2 million for “gender-affirming care,” activism, and influence campaigns in Guatemala,” the report stated.
The Department of State spent $1.5 million on the promotion of American films, television and video games abroad. The HHS committed the same amount on celebrity influencer campaigns to reduce drug use in “Latinx” communities and an additional $1.9 million on a “hybrid mobile phone family intervention” to reduce childhood obesity in the same community in Los Angeles County.
Former Chief Medical Advisor to the President, Dr. Anthony Fauci’s beagle experiments were extended by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for $13.8 million. NIH Director Jay Bhattachary announced in May that the agency shut down its last in-house beagle research facility. Bhattachary said they had been conducted for “decades.” The announcement came after Special Government Employee (SGE) Elon Musk posted on X, revealing that he would launch an investigation into the funding of the disturbing beagle puppy experiments, which were exposed in 2021.
Contenders for the strangest initiatives include: The HHS’s $936,000 on marketing campaigns targeting Los Angeles subcultures — “specifically the ‘bear/cub,’ ‘drag queen,’ and ‘queer punk rock’ scenes — for STD testing and treatment; the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)’s over $1,079,360 “teaching teenage ferrets to binge drink alcohol;” $14,643,280 from the National Science Foundation (NSF) and other agencies to “make monkeys play a ‘Price Is Right’-inspired video game;” and the NSF’s additional $2,494,321 to promote insects for human consumption.
The most disturbing expenditure, however, may be the War Department’s decision to fund $2,818,462 in grants for human fetal tissue from aborted babies to be implanted in “humanized mice.”
This year, the Department of Government Efficiency, better known as DOGE, was created by President Donald Trump. The U.S. government initiative, led by Musk, had the main goal was to cut federal waste. As of November 2025, the agency saved American taxpayers $214 billion.
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