Drag shows, Arabic Sesame Street, lonely rats: GOP senator details how Biden spent $1T on ‘government waste’

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., is calling out the Biden administration for spending over a trillion taxpayer dollars on “government waste” this year, including on a bearded lady cabaret show, Arabic Sesame Street, and “girl-centered climate action.”

The Kentucky senator released his annual “Festivus” report that details different ways in which the current administration spent taxpayer dollars throughout the year. 

The 2024 Festivus Waste Report found that the Biden-Harris administration spent over $1 trillion this year, including giving a $10,000 grant to “Beards on Ice” — an ice skating drag show on climate change put on by the Bearded Ladies Cabaret, a self-described “queer cabaret arts organization.”

Additionally, the Agency for International Development (USAID) spent $20 million on a Sesame Street spin-off show in Iraq, titled “Ahlan Simsim,” in an effort to promote “inclusion” and “mutual respect.”

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 Members of the Bearded Ladies Cabaret cross Broad St., before a march by supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., in Philadelphia, Pa., on the first day of the Democratic National Convention, July 25, 2016. (Tom Williams)

About $1.5 was spent experimenting how different species, such as young female kittens, respond to motion sickness. 

According to the report, researchers would strap kittens to a table, where they are spun around in several directions and have holes drilled into their skulls to keep them in place — “and it’s all being done with your money,” Paul writes in the report. “More than one and a half million dollars of it.”

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) reportedly gave New York University (NYU) over $400,000 to study whether lonely rats seek cocaine more than rats who are in positive environments, while the Department of the Interior (DOI) allocated $12 million to fund a pickleball complex in Las Vegas, according to the report.

Basma, Muppet From Ahlan Simsim, Sesame Street, speaks onstage during the 2019 Concordia Annual Summit – Day 1 at Grand Hyatt New York on September 23, 2019 in New York City. (Riccardo Savi)

“Now, did the government really need to spend nearly half a million dollars to verify that social isolation and starvation may lead to increased drug usage? One thing is for sure, we must end this rat-wheel of waste!” Paul wrote in the report.

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The State Department spent $3 million on “Girl-Centered Climate Action” in Brazil, a program reportedly designed to “empower young women to become climate leaders by integrating equity and inclusivity into environmental activism,” the report writes, citing the grant details.

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., ranking member of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, blocked a bill Wednesday that would have allowed local law enforcement agencies to track aerial drones. (Jose Luis Magana)

“As the average American taxpayers struggle to pay rent, their hard-earned dollars are ironically funneled into more real estate,” the report read, referring to the Biden struggles spending $10B on maintaining and furnishing buildings that were almost entirely empty.

The Department of Energy (DOE) gave automakers $15.5 billion to push the industry into the electric vehicle (EV) sector, while another $388,000 was given to “Magic in the United States,” a podcast discussing how magical beliefs and practices have evolved in the U.S.

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The senator also mentioned the Biden administration giving $2.1 million to fund Paraguay’s border: “Nothing says “America First” like securing someone else’s border,” Paul wrote.