No Spin Zone

[Arrow]

To borrow a phrase...we report..you decide...I keep hearing how we can't afford to take care of our Vets. And while I agree that there are vets that are milkin' the system for all it is worth just because they can. SHAME ON THEM. I believe we can and should do everything we can for those that are suffering from service connected disabilities. They should have the best of everything this country has to offer. All it would take is getting our priorities straight in this country. The following is just the tip of the iceberg of the waste that has gone in this country and continues to this day. When I hear congress handin' out their bullshit stories about how we just can't afford to take care of our vets ie concurrent receipt etc all I have to say is "Cry Me a River" and fly them the international sign of contempt.

GOLDEN FLEECE AWARDS 1975-1988

DATE
RECIPIENT
DESCRIPTION

March 1975
National Science Foundation
For squandering $84,000 to try to find out why people fall in love.

April 1975
National Science Foundation, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and the Office of Naval Research
For spending over $500,000 in the last seven years to determine under what conditions rats, monkeys, and humans bite and clench their jaws. The results of the test found that anger, stopping smoking, and loud noises produce jaw clenching in humans.

May 1975
Selective Service System and Army Corps of Engineers
For a $98,029 contract awarded to Kenneth Coffey to study the all-volunteer army concept in foreign countries two years after the all-volunteer army had already been put into effect in the U.S.

June 1975
U.S. Congress
For living high off the hog while much of the rest of the country is suffering economic disaster.

July 1975
Bureau of Land Management
For requiring useless paperwork on a contract that resulted in a $4,000 piece of equipment costing over $15,000.

August 1975
Federal Aviation Administration
For a $57,800 study of the body measurements of airline stewardess trainees.

September 1975
Department of the Navy
For using 64 planes to fly 1334 officers to the Hilton Hotel in Las Vegas for a reunion of private organization during the height of the energy crisis.

October 1975
National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism
For spending millions of dollars to find out if drunk fish are more aggressive than sober fish, if young rats are more likely than adult rats to drink booze in order to reduce anxiety, and if rats can be systematically turned into alcoholics.

November 1975
Frank Zarb, Administrator of the Federal Energy Administration
For spending $25,000 and using almost 19,000 gallons of fuel in ten months to fly around the country in chartered aircraft urging businessmen and civic groups to economize on energy resources.

December 1975
The White House
For its efforts to add to its empire through increased funds for consultants, contingencies, travel and high level personnel while calling for austerity from the rest of the government.

Fleece of the Year 1975
Department of the Air Force
For operating a $66 million fleet of 23 plush jets used solely to transport top government officials at a cost to the taxpayers of over $6 million a year.

January 1976
National Endowment for the Humanities
For spending at least $750,000 this year on grants to doctors and others to attend vacation-like, month long seminars.

February 1976
Department of the Navy
For turning an expected $15,000 in repairs on Vice President Rockefeller?s temporary home into $537,000 in total expenditures.

March 1976
National Science Foundation
For a grant to study ?Environmental Determinants of Human Aggression.? (Specifically, aggression of drivers caught in traffic jams).

April 1976
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
For requesting $2.8 million to construct an addition to the Lunar Laboratory to house 100 pounds of moon rocks.

May 1976
Federal Aviation Administration
For spending $417,000 for 95 meteorological instruments which make rain predictions from indoors.

June 1976
National Center for Health Services
For cost overruns of up to five times the original amount on over $20 million worth of grants and demonstration contracts.

July 1976
National Science Foundation?s Research Applied to National Need (RANN)
For awarding a $397,000 contract to study consumer legislation and services to a principal investigator and research center which were already both biased in favor of credit.

August 1976
General Services Administration
For spending over $1 million for 15 statues and murals at federal buildings.

September 1976
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
For a $140,000 contracting award for a 6,000 word article and book history of the Viking Mars Landing project.

October 1976
Department of Housing and Urban Development
For a $245,000 study of new towns.

November 1976
Department of the Treasury
For failing to collect $4.8 million in taxes from government big shots and for losing $17 to $18 million due to Treasury inaction.

December 1976
Army Corps of Engineers
Award of the Year for the worst record of cost overruns in the entire federal government - 47% of the Corps current projects had cost overruns of 100% or more.

January 1977
Department of Agriculture
For spending nearly $46,000 to find out how long it takes to cook breakfast.

February 1977
Law Enforcement Assistance Administration
For spending nearly $27,000 to determine why inmates want to escape from prison.

March 1977
Award of Merit to Veterans Affairs Director Max Cleland
Special award of merit to Mr. Cleland for driving himself to and from work in his own car despite the fact that he is a triple amputee. Savings to taxpayers of least $16,000 a year.

April 1977
Smithsonian Institution
For spending nearly $89,000 of public funds to produce a dictionary of Tzotzil, an unwritten language spoken by 120,000 corn-farming peasants in Southern Mexico.

May 1977
National Endowment for the Humanities
For making a $25,000 grant through the state to Arlington County, VA, to study why people are rude, cheat and lie on the local tennis courts.



June 1977
Awards of Merit to Smithsonian Institution, Farmers Home Administration, and National Science Foundation
Special Awards of Merit:

To the Smithsonian for building its Air and Space Museum on time, for less money than originally requested and with an improvement rather than a reduction in quality.

To the Farmers Home Administration which had a 32 percent increase in the weighted total of the loans and grants it made and services it offered, while reducing by 3 percent the number of persons doing the job.

To the National Science Foundation for funding work to build a man-made working gene; research in finding methods of improving nature?s way of replenishing nitrogen in the soil; and supporting pioneering research on how the brain recovers after damage.

July 1977
U.S. Postal Service
For spending over $3.4 million on a Madison Avenue ad campaign to make Americans write more letters to one another.

August 1977
Department of Transportation
For spending $225,000 on a report which forecasts transportation needs in the year 2025 under four separate science fiction ?scenarios.?

September 1977
National Endowment for the Arts
For a $6025 grant to an artist to film the throwing of crepe paper and burning gases out of a high flying airplane.

October 1977
Department of Labor
For granting a $384,948 contract to hire 101 people under a CETA program to do a door-to-door survey to count the dogs, cats, and horses in the 160,000 houses and apartments in Ventura, CA.

November 1977
Pentagon Civilian and Military brass
For misusing military aircraft on a massive scale at a cost to the taxpayers of at least $52.3 million.

December 1977
Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation
For a series of outrageous personal expenditures by the FDIC Chairman as revealed in a GAO report.

Fleece of the Year 1977
Department of the Treasury
For its zealous support of an end-of-the-year, end run attempt to amend the tax laws at a cost to the taxpayers of over $400 million.

January 1978
Law Enforcement Assistance Administration
For a $2 million prototype police patrol car.

February 1978
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
For proposing to spend $14 to $25 billion over the next seven years to try to find intelligent life in outer space.

March 1978
U.S. Senate
For proposing to spend over $122 million on a new Senate Office Building that would include a rooftop restaurant and the Senate?s third gym.

April 1978
National Institute for Mental Health
For funding a study of behavior and social relationships in a Peruvian brothel. This study was a part of a $97,000 grant.

May 1978
Agency for International Development
For a series of deliberate acts, bureaucratic bungles and self-serving deeds that led the agency?s own administrator John J. Gilligan, to complain that AID is ?over-age, over-rank, [and] over-paid.?

June 1978
Federal Highway Administration
For spending $222,000 to study ?Motorist Attitudes Toward Large Trucks.?

July 1978
Department of Defense
For spending over $1.2 million a year from a special fund hidden in the defense budget for gifts, parties, trips, dinners, receptions and other entertainment items.

August 1978
Department of Agriculture
For spending federal tax dollars to exercise confined pregnant pigs on a treadmill to relieve their boredom and psychological stress.

September 1978
Office of Education
For spending $40,375 in an attempt to give 35 of its ambitious or unhappy bureaucrats a new lease on their career lives.

October 1978
Environmental Protection Agency
For spending $38,174 on a two-year study to conclude that runoff from open stacks of cow manure on Vermont farms causes the pollution of water in nearby small streams and ponds.

November 1978
Department of the Interior
For spending $145,000 to install a wavemaking machine in a specially designed double-sized swimming pool in Salt Lake City, Utah.

December 1978
Office of Education
For spending $219,592 to develop a ?curriculum package? to teach college students how to watch television.

January 1979
Department of Labor
For funding a $140,000 never-completed consensus of the Samoan population of Orange County, CA.

February 1979
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
For spending $120,126 to build a low-slung, backward steering motorcycle that no one could ride.

March 1979
Department of the Air Force
For conducting a six month, $3,000 test at the Pentagon on the use of umbrellas by male personnel in uniform.

April 1979
Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Economic Development Administration
For spending $279,000 on a community center so completely unused that when it collapsed, it went unreported for days.

May 1979
Award of Merit to the U.S. Army and Dr. Percy A. Pierre
Award of merit for presenting to Congress the most readable and honest presentation on the actual needs of the U.S. Army.

June 1979
National Park Service
For a $75,000 slush fund which pays for entertainment, travel, and other expenses in excess of those appropriated for and approved under the Budget.

July 1979
Department of Commerce?s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
For spending at least $6,000 to determine if smoking marijuana has a bad effect on SCUBA divers.

August 1979
U.S. Congress
For the eruption in its staff and spending levels over the past decade.

September 1979
National Science Foundation
For spending $39,600 to study ?Himalayan Mountaineering, Social Change, and the Evolution of (the Buddhist) Religion among the Sherpas of Nepal.?

October 1979
Department of Agriculture
For awarding $90,000 for a two-year study on ?Behavioral Determinants of Vegetarians.?

November 1979
Department of the Air Force
For a last-minute $175,000 spending spree at Clark Air Force Base, the Philippines, designed to use up all available funds before they expired with the new fiscal year.

December 1979
Department of Energy
For spending $1,200 under its small grants energy saving technology program to build and test an above ground aerobic and solar-assisted composting toilet.