Senator Rand Paul has spent 11 years documenting some of Washington's worst insanity.
This year he uncovered something that left everyone speechless.
And Rand Paul just exposed an ugly trillion dollar reality and no one can comprehend how it was allowed to continue.
Washington burns through cash while debt explodes past $40 trillion
Kentucky Senator Rand Paul released his 11th annual "Festivus Report," unveiling a jaw-dropping $1.6 trillion in government waste.¹
That figure includes $1.22 trillion in interest payments alone on the national debt — meaning American taxpayers are now spending more on debt interest than on national defense.²
Paul timed the report for December 23, playing off the fake holiday from Seinfeld that features an "airing of grievances."
The difference is Paul's grievances are backed by hard numbers showing exactly where your tax dollars disappear.
"No matter how much taxpayer money Washington burns through, politicians can't help but demand more," Paul said.³
"Fiscal responsibility may not be the most crowded road, but it's one I've walked year after year — and this holiday season will be no different."
The national debt just blew past $36 trillion last year and is now racing toward $40 trillion.⁴
The Congressional Budget Office predicts Washington will add $6.53 billion in debt every single day for the next decade.⁵
That works out to borrowing $272 million every hour, $4.54 million every minute, and over $75,000 every second.⁶
Federal workers dose dogs with cocaine and teach ferrets to binge drink
Paul's report reads like a parody but every word is documented fact.
The Department of Health and Human Services spent over $5 million giving dogs cocaine and methamphetamine as part of ongoing experiments.⁷
That's not a typo — your tax dollars are literally going up a beagle's nose.
The same department dropped $1 million teaching "teenage ferrets to binge-drink alcohol" in what they called research.⁸
HHS also paid out more than $40 million to social media influencers to promote COVID-19 vaccines specifically to racial and ethnic minority groups.⁹
That included $1.5 million for an "innovative multilevel strategy" to reduce drug use in what they called "Latinx" communities through celebrity influencer campaigns.¹⁰
The National Institutes of Health spent $14.6 million teaching monkeys to play a "Price is Right"-inspired video game.¹¹
Taxpayers shelled out $2.1 million for researchers to collect saliva samples at electronic dance music festivals in New York City to test for over 1,000 drugs.¹²
White Coat Waste helped identify hundreds of millions in taxpayer money funding gain-of-function research and brutal experiments on dogs, monkeys, and rats — including $13.8 million on beagle experiments where dogs as young as 4 months are infected with diseases like Rocky Mountain spotted fever.¹³
The dogs are deliberately denied pain relief so it doesn't interfere with experimental vaccines.
Biden-era programs continue wasting billions despite Trump taking charge
Schools received nearly $200 billion in COVID-19 relief funds that got spent on "rooms at Caesars Palace, renting out MLB stadiums, and ice cream trucks."¹⁴
Congress previously allocated over $7 billion to build electric vehicle charging stations nationwide — only 68 have been built so far.¹⁵
The State Department paid $1.5 million to promote American films, television shows and video games abroad.¹⁶
They also spent $244,252 to produce a television cartoon series teaching Pakistani children about climate change.¹⁷
Paul lauded Trump's nearly $9 billion rescissions package that slashed funding for public broadcasting and foreign aid.
But he warned it's "a good start, just a drop in the bucket."¹⁸
Trump shut down the U.S. Agency for International Development and canceled $5 billion in foreign aid funding.
But even with those cuts, the spending madness continues across dozens of federal agencies.
Paul noted the federal government spent $10 billion on maintaining, leasing, and furnishing almost entirely empty buildings.¹⁹
The Department of the Interior wasted $12 million on a Las Vegas Pickleball Complex.²⁰
"I've played pickleball. Everybody loves pickleball, but really the federal government's got no business being in pickleball business," Paul said in an interview.²¹
The federal spending he calls waste is the trillion-dollar interest payments the Treasury made this year on the government's $38.4 trillion debt — making interest the third largest government expense after Social Security and Medicare.²²
For 11 years Paul has been tracking this waste while both political parties kept voting for massive spending bills filled with subsidies for underperforming industries, continued military aid to Ukraine, and controversial climate initiatives.
Congress sends "Americans' hard-earned money to foreign countries, funding endless wars, all while STILL ignoring our wide-open southern border," Paul wrote in his report.²³
Every American taxpayer is now on the hook for $271,191 as their share of the national debt.²⁴
Trump created the Department of Government Efficiency led by Elon Musk to cut waste, but even Musk admitted DOGE was only "somewhat successful" before he left Washington in May.²⁵
Paul vowed to work with Trump's administration to keep fighting the spending insanity, but he knows the real power belongs to Congress — and Congress has shown zero interest in controlling itself.
The Kentucky Senator's report proves Washington doesn't have a revenue problem. It has a spending addiction that's bankrupting the country one dog cocaine experiment at a time.
¹ Alex Miller, "Rand Paul's 'Festivus Report' calls out cocaine dogs, COVID influencers and mountain of debt," Fox News, December 23, 2025.
² Ibid.
³ Ibid.
⁴ Ibid.
⁵ Ibid.
⁶ Ibid.
⁷ Ibid.
⁸ Rand Paul, "Dr. Paul Releases 2025 'Festivus' Report on Government Waste," U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, December 23, 2025.
⁹ Miller, Fox News.
¹⁰ "Here Are Some Of The Wackiest Things Featured In Rand Paul's New Report," The Daily Caller, December 23, 2025.
¹¹ Paul, Senate Committee Report.
¹² Ibid.
¹³ Valerie Richardson, "Rand Paul's airing of grievances: Festivus Report identifies federal spending on unusual projects," Washington Times, December 23, 2025.
¹⁴ Miller, Fox News.
¹⁵ Ibid.
¹⁶ The Daily Caller.
¹⁷ Richardson, Washington Times.
¹⁸ Miller, Fox News.
¹⁹ "Senator Releases Annual 'Festivus Report' Chronicling $1 Trillion in Government Waste," Daily Citizen, December 26, 2024.
²⁰ Ibid.
²¹ "Sen. Rand Paul highlights government waste in annual Festivus Report," WJLA, January 10, 2025.
²² Richardson, Washington Times.
²³ "Bah, humbug! Rand Paul report details 'waste' in federal spending," The Center Square, December 25, 2024.
²⁴ Daily Citizen.
²⁵ Stef W. Kight, "Elon Musk reflects on DOGE's 'somewhat successful' run," Axios, December 10, 2025.
