This type of frivolous spending is the last thing Americans need to hear just as the federal debt tops a whopping $15 trillion. Already, public opinion of Congress is at an all-time low and this report, appropriately called “Wastebook 2011” will only add to the fury and mistrust of those running the country.  

In all, the Wastebook highlights more than $6.5 billion in “unnecessary, duplicative and low-priority” government projects in the last year alone. It illustrates that Washington is on a shopping binge, spending money it doesn’t have on things that are absolutely not necessary, says the Oklahoma Senator (Tom Coburn) behind the report. He points out that nearly $2.5 billion was added to the national debt each day in 2011.   

Here are a few examples of the government’s manic spending spree this year. It wasted $12 million on a failed energy-saving project in Pakistan, according to the report, and gave China $18 million for social services and environmental programs even though its economy is doing much better than ours.

Two million dollars helped pay for a wine exhibition and culinary center in Washington State and $765,000 were blown on a pancake franchise that was supposed to get built in an underserved community of Washington D.C. but instead went to an upscale neighborhood known as a shopping hotspot for well-to-do yuppies. A video game preservation center in New York got $113,000 and $550,000 financed a documentary about how rock music contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The list goes on and on with too many examples to list here, though one more expenditure merits mentioning. Nearly $200,000 went to a university study involving how cocaine enhances the sex drive of Japanese quail. You can’t make this stuff up. Just check out Senator Coburn’s 98-page report, which is linked above.