With billions of taxpayer dollars spent on low-priority and questionable projects, 2008 was a banner year for wasteful Washington spending. 2008: The Worst Waste of the Year highlights more than $1 billion in taxpayer funding that Washington bureaucrats and politicians wasted on everything from an inflatable alligator to training for casino workers to an unsuccessful search for Alaskan ice worms and extraterrestrial life forms. Unfortunately, this irresponsible spending by Congress comes at a time when our country faces significant challenges that must be addressed. Often, scarce taxpayer funding has been squandered on low-priority parochial projects, siphoning money from crucial issues that have been ignored. For example, even as Louisiana continues to rebuild its levees following the devastation of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, Congress has made sure one priority project stays on track: a bike path along the Mississippi River levee. A $1 million grant was awarded by the Federal Highway Administration – out of a fund set aside for road and bridge projects – to lengthen a bike path from downtown Baton Rouge to the campus of Louisiana State University. Here are just a few of the more than 60 examples of wasteful Washington spending outlined in 2008: The Worst Waste of the Year.
