Government waste should matter to students

What do the Alabama Watermelon Queen, the history of Russian smokers and the science behind your beer koozie all have in common? 

They’ve all received funding from a federal government that has grown to an uncontrollable size.

Amidst the 2015 holiday season, Kentucky senator and former GOP presidential candidate Rand Paul took to Twitter to celebrate Seinfeld’s fictitious holiday Festivus with a traditional airing of grievances. After taking shots at the other presidential hopefuls, Paul fired off a series of tweets listing a few of the ridiculous ways government spends people’s tax dollars. 

One tweet read, “Grievance: Researched the effectiveness of golf equipment in space. Cost: $15,000,000 #Festivus #AiringofGrievances.”

Although the golf equipment proposal was shot down by NASA, the list of grievances received much-needed attention in the media. While they were mildly humorous and probably elicited an occasional chuckle from Twitter users, Paul’s tweets highlighted a very serious problem: out-of-control government spending.

Unfortunately, the way the government handles money is not a laughing matter. Examples of frivolous spending are in no short supply, and we all have an incentive to care.

For instance, the U.S. Department of Agriculture spent $25,000 in 2012 on a promotional tour for the Alabama Watermelon Queen to inform the general public on the health benefits of eating watermelon.

Other federal departments are just as extravagant. In 2015, the U.S. Department of State spent $350,000 to develop a televised five-team cricket league in Afghanistan — in an area where only .003 percent of the population has television — with the expressed goal to “provide an outlet for young men who may be susceptible to extremism.”

Even roles of government expressly defined in the Constitution are not exempt from wasteful spending. While military research and development is bound to produce an occasional dead end, the number of impractical projects creates cause for concern. One case highlighting the excess expense is the Army’s mega-blimp: a $300 million project to develop a blimp for surveillance purposes over Afghanistan. It was never used and, in 2013, they decided to cut their losses and sold it back to the manufacturer for just $301,000.

All these instances of impractical spending draw to mind the words of economist Milton Friedman, “Nobody spends someone else’s money as wisely as he spends his own.”

Friedman’s sentiment has certainly been proven true at the federal level and can be discouraging for college students who are struggling to make ends meet. I felt dismayed when I spent semesters working full-time as a co-op student and saw how much of my paycheck was being withheld for taxes.

Budgeting to pay for rent, food, tuition and then hopefully having a little left over can be a constant source of stress. It’s hard to imagine being able to dole out cash at will to any cause or program that piques our interest — yet politicians seem to do this without a second thought. 

Furthermore, it’s difficult for a college student to imagine living free from the ever-looming cloud of debt. A main goal of new graduates is to pay off their student loans as soon as possible, and they make sacrifices in their budget to do so. It’s not fun or glamorous for a 25-year-old to pass over a trip abroad or a new car in order to pay back loans, but it has to be done. 

I propose Washington adopt this same mindset. 

It is irresponsible and downright unjust to fund wasteful endeavors while operating on a deficit year after year, leaving future generations with an ever-increasing burden of debt. According to the Department of the Treasury, the federal deficit for 2015 was $439 billion. This is money that will need reimbursement with interest as part of the national debt that is already at $19 trillion and counting.

As the massive number continues to climb with each passing second, we are the ones who end up paying for it. Eventually this number will grow too large to ignore and we will have to take drastic measures to fix it. These measures could come in the form of massive increases in taxes, large across-the-board cuts to government programs or both. 

It’s a problem that most Americans like to think they have no control over, but the more action we take now to curb this massive debt, the less catastrophic the eventual collapse will be.

Before losing all hope, there are some measures we can take to change this exasperating trend. The first is similar to the efforts of Paul and former Sen. Tom Coburn, which is to draw attention to the problem. Politicians often rely on the complexity, length and wordiness of bills to pass expenses on to a misguided public. In order to combat this, we must be aware of what our tax dollars are going towards rather than blindly adhering to the tax code. Whether we care or not, it is imperative to make sure our money is being used responsibly and efficiently.

With this awareness as well as the annual wastebooks — frequently published articles about waste-filled bills currently up for debate — you can hold your congressperson accountable by making calls to his or her office, and more importantly, appearing at the ballot box. 

Be wary of politicians who believe they’re wiser arbiters of your money than you, or it will be inevitable that government spending will quickly devolve into wasteful gimmicks.

Year after year we continue to see the excessive fiscal recklessness that has become a trademark of Washington, D.C. with little to no accountability.

But never fear, for the National Science Foundation was granted $150,000 to study why politics stresses us out.

Write to Jordan Drischler at jmd152@pitt.edu.