The Financial Edge blog, a project of Investopedia, released a list of their favorite – or, least favorite – ways government wastes taxpayer money. Here are the unlucky seven:

• $175,587 to use quail to study effects of cocaine. Quail were chosen because they reproduce easily in a lab. The conclusion? Cocaine use increases the likelihood of high-risk sexual behavior. Guess they ended up with a lot of quail.
• $550,000 to produce a movie about how rock ‘n’ roll helped defeat communism. Coming in May 2012, the movie follows the arrival of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band in Russia.
• $592,527 to prove chimps use poop to communicate. Anybody who has been to a zoo recently could have written this study.
• $742,907 to study how sheep grazing controls weeds. Anybody who has been to a farm recently could have written this study.
• $765,828 to fund a new International House of Pancakes in the trendy Columbia Heights neighborhood in Washington, DC. Now hundreds of DC staffers with the post-bar munchies can get their fix thanks to federal taxpayers.
• $17.8 million to China. Really. The U.S. government gave the Chinese $2.5 million for social services and $4.4 to help clean up its environment.
• $120 million in payments to dead people. The government may not see dead people, but it pays them. Sometimes it’s because the government has failed to register a death. Sometimes it’s because family members of the deceased are actually defrauding the government. Either way, it’s costly.

This list would actually be quite funny – if taxpayers weren’t footing the bill for the waste contained in it. Instead we agree with blogger Mike Sanibel who reminds us, “With a federal debt north of $15 trillion and projected annual deficits exceeding $1 trillion as far as the eye can see, it’s clear that the federal government has difficulty controlling costs or living within a budget.”

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