On Wednesday night, comedian Jimmy Kimmel used Senator Tom Coburn’s (R-OK) annual Wastebook as an opportunity to mock the federal government’s continued waste of taxpayer dollars.
The ABC late night host hilariously asked his audience if they could “tell the difference between a real government expenditure from Wastebook and an idea a stoner came up with on his own.”
Kimmel highlighted how “our government spent $387,000 giving rabbits a daily massage. That doesn't sound wasteful. That sounds adorable to me. Apparently it's an experiment. They were trying to gauge the effect that massage has on muscles after exercise. But it sounds ridiculous.”
Other examples of government waste Kimmel mentioned were “a room full of monkeys playing video games to unlock the secrets of free will” and “mountain lions on a treadmill.” While Kimmel only mentioned a few things from Senator Coburn’s Wastebook, the 2014 edition includes a whopping $25 billion taxpayer dollars the government has wasted on “stupid pet tricks.”
See relevant transcript below.
ABC
Jimmy Kimmel Live
October 23, 2014
JIMMY KIMMEL: The annual Wastebook report was released today. This is an annual report that lists what Senator Tom Coburn describes as some of the government’s wasteful endeavors. I didn't read the Wastebook, I'm waiting for the waste movie to come out. But there are some very unusual sounding expenditures. For example, according to the book, the government, our government, spent $387,000 giving rabbits a daily massage. That doesn't sound wasteful. That sounds adorable to me. Apparently it's an experiment. They were trying to gauge the effect that massage has on muscles after exercise. But it sounds ridiculous. Many of these government-funded projects do.
In fact, let's see if you can tell the difference between a real government expenditure from Wastebook and an idea a stoner came up with on his own, okay? Here we go. First idea, a room full of monkeys playing video games to unlock the secrets of free will. Stoner or government expenditure? The answer is -- that is a government expenditure. All right. Next. Mountain lions on a treadmill. Stoner or expenditure? And it is -- a real government expenditure.
A metal foil that can keep mountains cold. Stoner or expenditure? And the answer is – that was a stoner. Teaching synchronized swimming to sea monkeys. Expenditure or stoner? All right, couple of expenditures. All right. And the answer is -expenditure. Finally, a microchip that can read a cat's emotions. Stoner or expenditure? And it is -- no, it's a stoner. I guess it could be both, really if you think about it. But yes. That was fun. Thank you for playing. Kind of ironic for a member of Congress though to be complaining about government waste. I think we spend around $5 billion every year on Congress. We don't seem to be getting anything out of that, right? What we got is a report on how much money they waste, so thank you.
Earlier on NewsBusters: Government funds "Massage in Rabbits"
