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Senator William Proxmire?s
GOLDEN FLEECE AWARDS 1980 TO 1985



January 1980
Award of Merit to the U.S. Air Force and General Slay
Award of merit for initiating a tough, no-nonsense program of reducing sole-source contracts and replacing them with good, old-fashioned American competition which could save millions annually.

February 1980
Environmental Protection Agency
For spending an extra $1-$1.2 million to preserve a Trenton, NJ sewer as a historical monument.

March 1980
National Institute for Mental Health
For funding a study on why bowlers, hockey fans, and pedestrians smile.

April 1980
U.S. Coast Guard
For wasting over a half a million dollars on a microfiche conversion project which had to be canceled when it took three years to complete only seven percent of the required work.

May 1980
Department of Education
For fattening its staff and beefing up its budget after promising that if the department were created it would include no more people and would cost no more than previously devoted to education programs.

June 1980
Department of Commerce
For spending $98,000 to hire a private public relations firm to review and evaluate the Department?s public relations efforts.

July 1980
Award of Merit to General Services Administration
Award of merit for getting the government a break on sky-rocketing air travel costs. This experimental program will save $7 million in the first six months.

August 1980
Government National Mortgage Association
For spending $6,918 to buy simulated leather binders which it sent out to savings and loan associations across the country to commemorate the issue of a total of $100 billion in mortgage-backed securities.

September 1980
Department of Labor
For funding a summer youth employment program in Arizona in which 14 junior college track athletes were paid for twice-a-day training sessions, weekly trips to compete in races, and week-long trips to train, compete and meet with other runners.

October 1980
Department of Defense
For understating by $1.5 million various excessive costs in operating public housing for high ranking generals and admirals.

November 1980
Department of Education?s Institute of Museum Services
For a $25,000 federal grant to a California zoo part of which was used to send two animal keepers half way across the country to attend a three-day elephant workshop in Tulsa, OK.

December 1980
Federal Highway Administration
For spending $241,760 to produce a computerized system that gives local travel directions to people who can?t or won?t read.

January 1981
Office of Personnel Management and the Merit System Protection Board
For spending $126,729 to send out duplicate surveys asking top federal employees how they like their jobs.

February 1981
Presidential Inaugural Committee
For spending $1.8 million to commandeer 1,120 Marines, soldiers, sailors and other service personnel to act as chauffeurs and aids to 274 Inaugural VIPs as well as several hundred additional Inaugural celebrants all the while proclaiming that no public money was being spent on the Inauguration

March 1981
Office of the Architect of the Capitol
For developing plans to build up to six new House and Senate Office Buildings that would cost at least $500 million to construct.

April 1981
Department of Housing and Urban Development
For letting slum landlords dump their low-quality, sub-standard housing on the backs of the taxpayers to the tune of a least $200 billion in fiscal year 1982.

May 1981
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
For construction cost overruns of $500 million for a Tracking Data Relay and Satellite System (TDRSS).

June 1981
Department of Commerce
For giving the City and County of Honolulu $28,600 to study how they can spend another $250,000 for a good surfing beach.

July 1981
Department of the Army
For spending $6,000 to prepare a 17-page document that tells the federal government how to buy a bottle of Worcestershire sauce.

August 1981
Managers of Social Security Trust Fund at Department of the Treasury
For poor investment policies that needlessly lost $2 billion in earnings in 1980.

September 1981
Department of Commerce?s Economic Development Administration
For spending $200,000 to build an 800 foot limestone replica of the Great Wall of China in Bedford, IN.

October 1981
National Science Foundation
For spending $144,012 to test commonly accepted, historically proven, fundamental economic principles on supply and demand ?on pigeons.

November 1981
Federal Highway Administration
For currently holding the worst record of civilian cost overruns in the Federal Government with $100 billion in cost overruns.

December 1981
Department of Defense
For running a $13,000, 6 year program in which a bull was tested for possible biological effects resulting from a submarine communications device ? a study later found useless by Navy officials. Long subject to rumor, the story of ?Sylvester the Bull? was confirmed in official Navy correspondence with Senator Proxmire.

January 1982
Department of Agriculture
For spending $40,000 for a study entitled ?Food Preferences and Social Security.?

February 1982
National Endowment for the Arts
For giving a $7,000 grant for a sound and light show at the state capitol in Madison, WI.

March 1982
Small Business Administration
For providing two loan guarantees ? almost $1 million in total ? to a California aquatic park for a giant water slide and other construction.

April 1982
Synthetic Fuels Corporation
For spending over $44,000 for a study which recommended increasing top salaries to as much as $190,000.

May 1982
Department of the Army (DARCM)
For spending $35 million over 13 years on a new gas mask that is no improvement over the masks that it will replace.

June 1982
Departments of Labor and Commerce
For shelling out over $700,000 to a non-profit corporation to teach minority youth how to make tee shirts - despite the fact that the department?s auditors said the program would fail (and it did).

July 1982
General Services Administration
For losing 49,000 forms ? the equivalent of open-ended airline tickets ? with a potential value of at least $7 million.

August 1982
Minority Business Development Agency
For spending $138,000 to conduct three management training seminars at 3-star resort hotels.

September 1982
190 Federal Officials
For being coddled and pampered at the expense of American taxpayers to the tune of $3.4 million by being provided with door-to-door chauffeur service.

October 1982
Office of Management and Budget
For letting Government big-shots eat high off the hog in 22 private dining rooms at an annual cost to the taxpayer of over $2.3 million.

November 1982
Public Health Service
For letting well-heeled doctors welsh on students loans financed by the taxpayer.

December 1982
Social Security Administration
For putting together a high-priced team of employees to plan a move to a new computer center and then shelling out $6.6 million to consultants to do the same work.

January 1983
Economic Development Administration
For allowing US cities and non-profit organizations to misuse a $198 million federal loan fund dedicated to creating local jobs.

February 1983
General Services Administration
For wasting $1.5 million ? with a potential of $13 million more ? trying to renovate an old train station in Nashville, TN.

March 1983
Department of the Navy
For spending $11,225 to decorate a Navy captain?s office.

April 1983
Department of Housing and Urban Development
For wasting over $1.2 million at one area office by paying several times for work done once, by approving loan payments on non-existing loans, and by blinking at excessive management fees for public housing projects.

May 1983
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
For spending $22,700 to seek out composers and artists who would like to spend taxpayers? money on art and music in a future space station.

June 1983
National Institute of Education
For failure to keep tabs on a $900,000 government contract. This resulted in about $500,000 of the taxpayer?s money being blown on everything from unsecured personal loans to purchasing a disco and promoting a rock concert.

July 1983
U.S. Coast Guard
For spending $1.1 million to build a boat repair station at Cape Hatteras, NC, which sat empty and unused for about a year

August 1983
U.S. District Court, Judges of Atlanta, GA
For fixing the jury on design and construction at the Richard B. Russell Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse and then serving the taxpayers with their bill for an extra $7 million.

September 1983
Department of the Army
For spending about $20,000 to prepare 30,000 fancy, multi-colored pamphlets explaining how to play King of the Hill.

October 1983
Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)
For wasting $232,000 of taxpayer?s money by miscalculating rental payments. Tenants in these projects pay only 25% of the rent with landlords claiming the rest from HUD.

November 1983
Health Care Financing Administration
For clipping the taxpayer of $45 million by allowing Medicare to foot the bill for cutting toenails.

December 1983
Economic Development Administration
For loaning $500,000 interest-free to a private company?s sole stockholder, for paying $314,320 in cash for a helicopter to be used by a sole stockholder, for purchasing a $65,000 lakeside cabin and for spending $1.7 million on other questionable transactions.

January 1984
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
For spending over $780,000 in tax funds to transport 2,228 VIPs and special guests to 12 Space Shuttle launches.

February 1984
Fort Worth Regional Office of the Urban Mass Transportation Administration
For mismanaging $64 million worth of capital improvement projects reviewed by Department of Transportation auditors for the period of January 1981-May 1983.

March 1984
U.S. Forest Service
For attempting to yoke four helicopters and a blimp into one contraption to lift logs from the national forests. The project was four years behind schedule and costs had ballooned from $26 million to $40 million.

April 1984
National Institute of Dental Research
For sponsoring a 5-year, $465,500 study to find out the ?effects of orthodontia on psycho-social functioning.?



lMay 1984
Award of Merit to General David B. Hoff of the Wisconsin Air Guard
For solving a safety hazard on A-10 aircraft in three months with $1,100 of his own money when all the experts said it would cost tens of thousands of dollars and take two years.

June 1984
Department of the Interior
For gross mismanagement by allowing the Territory of Guam to waste millions of dollars on paving parking lots at a private nightclub and an apartment building and for hiring people who spent much of their time drinking coffee.

July 1984
Federal Crop Insurance Corporation
For spending almost $12 million of federal funds on an advertising campaign to increase awareness of the federal crop insurance program and persuade farmers that it is a good investment. A study showed that farmers ended up knowing no more about this program after the ad campaign than they did before.

August 1984
Health Care Financing Administration
For Medicaid payments to psychiatrists for ?chance meetings? with patients who were attending basketball games, sitting on stoops, etc., -- the cost of which ran between $40-80 million over the last four years.

September 1984
State Department
For permitting employees to use over $400,000 to frolic on posh ocean cruises

October 1984
Defense Department
For spending $100,000 to fly cadets and midshipmen to California to attend last year?s Army-Navy game.

November 1984
Social Security Administration
For spending $1.6 million and 6 years trying and ultimately failing to get a new high-tech cassette tape filing system to work.

December 1984
Office of Management and Budget
For advocating cuts in domestic spending yet allowing 71 different government agencies to spend at least $12.9 million on entertainment costs in 1984.