Every year, Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn (R)  releases the "Wastebook" Report, a detailed look at useless, frivolous and ridiculous government spending.

This year, the Wastebook contains some of the following gems:

  • A $347,000 alternative medicine grant to measure the effects of massage therapy on rabbits.
  • $200,000 to upgrade the Ithica, New York Police Department's SWAT Team.  While Ithica is a well-known town in New York, it's hardly a bastion of crime.  It's population is just over 30,000.
  • A $350 million launch pad pushed by Mississippi GOP leaders that would have supported a rocket program that was shut down four years ago.  The project was eventually mothballed.
  • $1.6 million for the airport in Sun Valley, Idaho (no major commercial air traffic)
  • $468 million for 20 Afghan Air Force planes that wound up being scrapped because they were unstable when flying...and the list goes on.

Coburn claims to have found at least $20 billion in what he calls "wasteful" spending.   He usually votes against such projects, and is often on the losing end.  But recently he was successful in getting rid of a $500,000 subsidy for an airport that rarely ever had an airplane take off from in his home state of Oklahoma.

More From 870 AM KFLD