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Craziest examples of government waste – Taxpayer Waste Watch

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News release from the Canadian Taxpayers Federation

The feds are spending millions of your tax dollars trying to “green” their offices. Then the government is spending millions more of your tax dollars flying battalions of bureaucrats and politicians around the world.

Here’s a crazy idea: the government could save you money, and cut down on emissions, by skipping out on a couple taxpayer-funded international conferences.

Plus, we’ve compiled the craziest examples of government waste in one video. You’re going to love the video, but hate the waste.

All that and more in this week’s Taxpayer Waste Watch. Enjoy.

Franco.


Bank of Canada fixes with its left hand, what it breaks with its right

They say hypocrites are the kind of people who will cut down a tree, only to stand on the stump and give a speech about the importance of protecting forests.

Someone should get the fat cats at the Bank of Canada on the horn and let them know about that particular definition.

In recent years, the Bank of Canada dumped millions of your tax dollars into a green initiative aimed at lowering its carbon footprint.

Meanwhile, at the exact same time, its executives have been racking up frequent flyer miles while globetrotting to exotic, far-flung locales.

Burning through jet fuel and your tax dollars in the process.

Since 2020, the Bank of Canada dropped $4.1 million on its “greening the bank” initiative, a multi-year effort to measure and reduce its carbon footprint.

More than $1 million has been spent on internal program costs, alongside $950,000 on external consultants and studies, and $2.1 million on green investments.

On top of the greening the bank initiative, the Bank of Canada also signed a contract with the Delphi Group for up to $300,000.

The Delphi Group is a consulting firm “specializing in climate change, sustainability and ESG,” according to its website.

Six staff from the Delphi Group will aid the Bank of Canada’s “annual quantification of its GHG inventory,” according to records obtained by the CTF.

But if the Bank of Canada is looking for ways to lower its carbon footprint, it doesn’t need to spend millions hiring consultants.

All it has to do is look at its executives’ expense reports.

In 2023, Bank of Canada executives racked up $535,000 in travel expenses.

Bank executives took dozens of trips to exotic destinations, including Portugal, Japan, Greece, France, Sweden, Germany, India, Peru, the West Indies and Switzerland.

Bank Governor Tiff Macklem racked up $179,000 in travel expenses alone.

Macklem took 26 separate trips, including four visits to Switzerland, two to Sweden, two to India and one each to Morocco, Portugal, Japan and the Caymen Islands.

So first you’re forced to pay for first-class airfare so bank executives can jet set around the globe to attend conferences and give speeches.

And then you’re forced to pay for millions in consultant fees because the big brains at the central bank are confused why their carbon footprint is so high.

Needless to say, if they can’t crack that puzzle, then it’s little wonder why inflation has run rampant while ravaging the paycheques of taxpayers like you.

But don’t worry, folks.

If the bank runs out of your cash to blow on all these vacations – erm, sorry, we mean “work trips” – we’re sure they’ll just fire up the money printer to cover the costs.

Franco’s note: Any time we write about the Bank of Canada I need to mention this:

The Bank of Canada has one job: keep inflation low and around two per cent. Bank of Canada bureaucrats got $20 million in bonuses in 2022 while it hiked interest rates seven times and inflation reached a 40-year high.

This should go without saying, but bonuses are for people who do a good job, not people who fail at their one and only job.

Trudeau wants to spend your money on…

Every year, the federal government tables main and supplementary estimate documents that detail how your money will be allocated to fund government programs.

But with all the shenanigans currently holding up the House of Commons, the Trudeau government is worried they may not be able to fund these government schemes.

It’s a good bet Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his minions will claim a vote is needed to make sure struggling Canadians get the help they need.

But the CTF read through the entirety of the recently-released Supplementary Estimates report to see what sort of spending the feds are actually proposing:

  • $970 million to cover pay raises for bureaucrats
  • $4.5 million for government advertising
  • $46 million for the 2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup
  • $20 million for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at the Canada Media Fund
  • $200,000 for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s plan to plant two billion trees
  • $45 million for the gun confiscation scheme
  • $6.9 million for pro-carbon tax ads
  • $5.5 million for the Toronto Film Festival
  • $3.4 million for settlements related to the Phoenix payroll fiasco

Does any of that sound like necessary government spending to you?

VIDEO: Craziest government waste

We’ve said it time and time again.

You pay too much tax because the government wastes too much money.

Don’t believe us? Then watch (and share) the video below.

CTF Federal Director Franco Terrazzano brings the receipts on some of the craziest government waste that’s out of Ottawa in recent years.

The taxpayer reading list

If you’re looking for more reading on taxpayer issues, we’ve got you covered.

Canada’s EV gamble looks even more foolish with Trump retaking the White House: https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/jay-goldberg-canadas-ev-gamble-looks-even-more-foolish-with-trump-retaking-the-white-house

Government employees scored $150M in standby pay last year: https://torontosun.com/news/national/government-employees-scored-150m-in-standby-pay-last-year-documents

Saskatoon spent more than $300,000 to name new bus system: https://www.taxpayer.com/newsroom/saskatoon-spent-more-than-300,000-to-name-new-bus-system

Confirms $523K Rush Orders: https://www.blacklocks.ca/confirms-523k-rush-orders/

Trudeau’s bureaucracy boom: Salaries and spending spiralling out of control:  https://www.rebelnews.com/trudeau_s_bureaucracy_boom_salaries_and_spending_spiraling_out_of_control

Premier Holt’s carbon tax flip-flop: https://tj.news/new-brunswick/devin-drover-premier-holts-carbon-tax-flip-flop

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CIA Offers To Payout Entire Agency: REPORT

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From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By Hailey Gomez

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) reportedly offered payouts to its entire workforce Tuesday, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The CIA has apparently become the first intelligence agency to offer its employees a way out, as they were reportedly offered a bid to quit their jobs in exchange for roughly eight months of pay and benefits, the outlet reported. Trump administration officials told the outlet that the move is a signal to help those who oppose President Donald Trump’s agenda find other work.

In addition to the offer, the WSJ reported that an aide to CIA Director John Ratcliffe said the agency is freezing its hiring for job seekers with conditional offers, with some expected to be rescinded if the agents don’t have the background necessary for the agency’s new direction.

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“Director Ratcliffe is moving swiftly to ensure the CIA workforce is responsive to the Administration’s national security priorities. These moves are part of a holistic strategy to infuse the Agency with renewed energy, provide opportunities for rising leaders to emerge, and better position the CIA to deliver on its mission,” a CIA spokesperson told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Ratcliffe was confirmed as the CIA’s new leader on Jan. 23, after the Senate approved him in a 74-25 vote. In his opening remarks during his confirmation process, Ratcliffe said he would adhere to the CIA’s core mission and focus on threats from the Chinese Communist Party.

“We will collect intelligence — especially human intelligence — in every corner of the globe, no matter how dark or difficult,” Ratcliffe said in his testimony. “We will produce insightful, objective, all-source analysis, never allowing political or personal biases to cloud our judgement or infect our products. We will conduct covert action at the direction of the president, going places no one else can go and doing things no one else can do.”

The move from the CIA comes a week after the U.S. Office of Personnel Management released an email on Jan. 28, showing that millions of federal employees were offered deferred compensation through Sept. 30, provided they submit their resignation notices by Feb. 6.

“If you choose to remain in your current position, we thank you for your renewed focus on serving the American people to the best of your abilities and look forward to working together as part of an improved federal workforce,” the email said.  “At this time, we cannot give you full assurance regarding the certainty of your position or agency but should your position be eliminated you will be treated with dignity and will be afforded the protections in place for such positions.”

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Liberals, globalists flip out after Trump orders USAID freeze

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From LifeSiteNews

By Stephen Kokx

How many Americans even knew what USAID was until this week? I’m guessing less than one percent. 

For the uninformed: USAID was started by President John F. Kennedy in 1961. Officially named the United States Agency for International Development, it spends over $40 billion in taxpayer dollars every year on various initiatives overseas; most of which are a complete waste of money, as Elon Musk and others have pointed out in recent days. See here:  

Whatever good intentions Kennedy may have had for the program, it has morphed into a slush fund for the Deep State to spread wokeism and to spark revolutions in countries that resist its tyrannical decrees. All of this is done in the name of “defending democracy” mind you. 

Under Joe Biden, USAID was run by World Economic Forum functionary Samantha Powers, who weaponized the agency to funnel boatloads of cash to Ukraine, among other futile projects.   

That fact was pointed out by Balázs Orbán, the son of Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, on X this week. 

 

A CIA front group that promotes LGBT ideology overseas 

President Trump has had enough of this. In his continued effort to drain the swamp, he signed an executive order empowering the newly created Department of Governmental Efficiency to dismantle USAID. 

“I love the concept, but they turned out to be radical left lunatics,” he said about the agency in the Oval Office on Monday.   

USAID’s website has already been shut down, and many of its liberal employees have been fired or barred from entering its headquarters in D.C., causing Democrats to hold a rally outside of it; because nothing shows the American people that you care about them more than defending a program designed to spend their money in foreign lands. Talk about being out of touch.  

 

 

Oddly enough, left-wing Jesuit priest James Martin also defended the agency by claiming that Jesus would support it as well. He was rightly called out by Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò on X.  

 

Trump’s Secretary of State Marco Rubio has been named USAID’s interim director. He told the media this week that its rogue behavior has come to an end.  

“USAID has a history of ignoring [the national interest of the United States] and deciding that they’re a global charity. These are not donor dollars, these are taxpayer dollars,” he said. 

 

Other lawmakers and mainstream pundits have jumped on the bandwagon as well. 

“To my friends who are upset, call somebody who cares. You better get used to this. It’s USAID today, it’s gonna be Department of Education tomorrow,” GOP Senator John Kennedy said.  

 

“It’s not foreign aid — it’s a foreign slush fund,” Fox News’ Laura Ingraham has argued, as has Glenn Beck 

Trump’s “Rapid Response” X account joined in on the fun by highlighting some of the many ways the agency has wasted your and my money on LGBT and DEI causes abroad. 

 

Democrats melt down as Trump takes aim 

Liberals have been unable to control themselves. News that fewer tax dollars will be spent promoting their woke religion has left them apoplectic.  

This is a “coup,” thundered an emotional Joy Reid on MSNBC. 

Fellow MSNBC anchor Jen Psaki ludicrously claimed that the agency helps with “humanitarian” causes and “works to combat corruption.” 

Van Jones said on CNN the rolling back of funding is Trump telling the world to “go die.” 

Total nonsense.  

Like Freemasonry, USAID may feed the poor and help some impoverished people, but that is just cover to hide its true aim, which is to sow discord in countries that reject the NATO and U.S. empire.  

USAID has done this for decades, primarily by funding non-governmental organizations (and even extremists) that cause headaches for leaders who refuse to be slaves to the West. This has been the case in the nation of Georgia over the past several years. See here:  

 

 

CNN’s Scott Jennings, a Republican, made a comment about how USAID has been appropriated by liberals that really hits the nail on the head with what has gone wrong with it. 

“There is a difference between soft power and soft stupidity. So whether you’re funding DEI musicals in some country or transgender surgery somewhere or whatever, that is not what most Americans would say is an effective part of U.S. foreign policy.” 

USAID funded the Wuhan lab in China 

Perhaps the most attention-grabbing headline that has emerged with the USAID story is the revelation that the agency funneled $40 million to a lab in Wuhan, China, to study bat coronaviruses. 

“Records prove that Ben Hu — COVID’s likely ‘Patient Zero’ — is a Wuhan white coat funded directly by Fauci, NIT & USAID to conduct dangerous coronavirus gain of function experiments on animals!” watchdog group White Coat Waste Project posted on X today.  

Fauci has long denied being involved in such measures, but GOP Senator Ran Paul has never backed down from disputing his claims. He likewise challenged Samantha Powers about USAID money going to Wuhan as well.  

 

Last week, Paul announced his intention to continue digging into the matter, given Biden’s preemptive pardoning of Fauci.  

 

Today, Paul re-shared an X post from political activist Matt Kibbe that suggested he is on the cusp of blowing the whole thing wide open.  

“NIAID and USAID were money-laundering puppets for agencies prohibited from doing dangerous gain-of-function bioterrorism research. Now, Rand Paul and Elon Musk are poised to expose the whole scheme,” Kibbe said.  

 

USAID has misspent taxpayer money in countless other ways as well. Many of the downright bizarre programs are being shared on X. Here are a few of them:  

 

 

 

It should be noted that Rand Paul’s father, former Congressman Ron Paul, has been a critic of the Deep State for decades. In a recent video message, he called on the government to audit USAID and then shut it down. Elon Musk re-shared the video, calling it an “interesting” proposal.  

 

That’s good advice. I hope Elon and Trump will take it and follow through on it. Ending USAID is long overdue. 

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