Believe it or not, last year your tax dollars went to school in Argentina, where they teach you how to be a liberal. I don’t know about you but I find this to be outrageous. Why should we be paying for training Argentinians to be liberals. It makes no sense but there it is in black and white, Credit Rand Paul and his annual report on government waste for revealing this seedy program. According to Paul, we spent $324,015 to fund a clown college in Argentina. There are enough liberals in this world without creating more.
Paul releases a “waste report” each year that draws attention to federal dollars spent around the globe. The 2017 report includes tongue-in-cheek examples ranging from $100,000 to “teach farmers how to use Facebook” to $1.8 million to “remind Cambodian motorcyclists to wear a helmet.”
Paul highlighted one such example in a string of tweets Saturday: about $300,000 spent to fund a clown school in Argentina.
The school funding comes from the Inter-American Foundation (IAF), a U.S. agency that provides an unorthodox alternative to traditional foreign aid. IAF has awarded 5,100 grants worth more than $720 million since 1972 to “the most creative ideas for self-help” in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Other grants to Argentina include money for technical assistance to Argentinian farmers, funding for a business learning center in Buenos Aires and micro-loans to poor garment workers looking to start a business.
There are also grants for things outside the mainstream besides the liberal training program, teaching teaching children acrobatics, trapeze gymnastics and dance. These grants are allegedly for lowering unemployment in the country. I never realized that Argentina suffered from a shortage of acrobats. That sounds serious.
Every year, several members of congress make up these lists of worthless programs we are supporting with our taxes and every year there are plenty of examples. I have an idea and it’s just crazy enough that it might just work. Let’s not fund this crap.