DC is LITERALLY spending your tax dollars on monkey business, cocaine puppies and $1.2 trillion in interest

Sen. Rand Paul’s annual Festivus Report — an “airing of grievances” against ridiculously wasteful government spending — reveals a jaw-dropping $1.63 trillion torching of taxpayer money in the last fiscal year. 

That includes an eye-popping $1.22 trillion just to cover interest on the national debt. (Consider that a stack of 1.22 trillion dollar bills would reach nearly 83,000 miles high — roughly one-third of the way to the Moon.)

Mind-blowing outlays went for an endless string of absolutely nutty projects: 

• $14.6 million for monkeys playing a Plinko-style video game.

• $40 million to influencers urging minority groups to get COVID vaccines — years after the pandemic ended.

• $2.1 million for drug-use surveys at NYC dance clubs.

• $1.5 million for “TikTok therapy” campaigns.

• Nearly $2.5 million for the National Science Foundation to promote insects as “food for humans.”

• $5.2 million for cocaine puppies and $1 million to get ferrets drunk.

Just as crazy are the overseas projects squandering US tax bucks:

• $2 million for “gender-affirming care,” activism and influence campaigns in Guatemala.

• $1.7 million to send US films and filmmakers abroad for screenings.

Clearly, Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency was on the right track in trying to rein in all this waste.

Americans can debate whether, say, housing subsidies or investment in a new weapon for defense are good uses of US tax dollars.

But so many of the projects Paul flagged are inarguably inappropriate for government spending, especially when the national debt has soared past $38 trillion.

Kudos to Sen. Paul for exposing such obscenities every year. The only question is why — after so much exposure and ridicule — don’t these outlays end?