Nefarious purposes and stupid ideas galore

April 11, 2025

OPINION by ANDY CALDWELL

Thanks to DOGE, we know that the Biden administration, as well as previous administrations, were spending billions via the U.S. Agency for International Development program for nefarious purposes and stupid ideas. Then, there was the  Environmental Protection Agency employee who was caught on camera comparing the funding that was spent at the last minute for various dubious climate change initiatives which the staffer referred to as “throwing gold bars off the Titanic.”

Finally, millions were spent on woke mad-scientist experiments at various university research labs throughout the country that amounted to nothing less than cruelty to animals.

Here is a very short list from the White House detailing a smidgen of our wasted tax dollars:

• $1.5 million to “advance diversity equity and inclusion in Serbia’s workplaces and business communities”
• $70,000 for production of a “DEI musical” in Ireland
• $2.5 million for electric vehicles for Vietnam
• $47,000 for a “transgender opera” in Colombia
• $32,000 for a “transgender comic book” in Peru
• $2 million for sex changes and “LGBT activism” in Guatemala
• $6 million to fund tourism in Egypt
• Hundreds of thousands of dollars for a non-profit linked to designated terrorist organizations — even after an inspector general launched an investigation
• Millions to EcoHealth Alliance — which was involved in research at the Wuhan lab
• Hundreds of thousands of meals that went to al Qaeda-affiliated fighters in Syria
• Hundreds of millions of dollars to fund “irrigation canals, farming equipment, and even fertilizer used to support the unprecedented poppy cultivation and heroin production in Afghanistan,” benefiting the Taliban

I was reminded of two things when I read about this wasteful spending of tens of billions of tax dollars. The first was that this level of wasteful spending is not limited to the federal government, albeit the federal government has a greater capacity, aptitude, and history of wasting more dollars because they can print and borrow money like there is no tomorrow.

Nevertheless,  Santa Barbara County has given upwards of $1 million to various “charities,” to fund such activities as “anti-racism rallies,” over the last few years to assuage the woke community’s collective guilt for the death of George Floyd, even though local taxpayers had nothing to do with the death of Floyd.

The second thing this wasteful spending reminded me of was a story taken from the book “The Life of Colonel David Crockett,” written in 1884 by Edward S. Ellis. The story has to do with the time when Davy Crockett served as a member of Congress.

As the story goes, Crockett had once voted in Congress to give a charitable donation of $20,000 to a community that had been ravaged by fire. Upon return to his district, he was upbraided by a constituent, a farmer no less, who understood the limits of the Constitution better than does any member of Congress today.

The constituent, Mr. Horatio Bunce, had this to say, “… an understanding of the Constitution different from mine I cannot overlook, because the Constitution, to be worth anything, must be held sacred, and rigidly observed in all its provisions. It is not the amount that I complain of; it is the principle.

In the first place, the government ought to have in the Treasury no more than enough for its legitimate purposes. The power of collecting and disbursing money at pleasure is the most dangerous power that can be entrusted to man, particularly under our system of collecting revenue by a tariff, which reaches every man in the country, no matter how poor he may be, and the poorer he is the more he pays in proportion to his means.”

Mr. Bunce rightly warned, “You will very easily perceive what a wide door this would open for fraud, corruption, and favoritism, on the one hand, and for robbing the people on the other.

“Congress has no right to give charity. Individual members may give as much of their own money as they please, but they have no right to touch a dollar of the public money for that purpose. Congress only has the power to do certain things for which it is authorized to collect and pay moneys, and for nothing else. Everything beyond this is usurpation, and a violation of the Constitution.”

Has anybody said it better?

Andy Caldwell is the executive director of COLAB in Santa Barbara County and host of The Andy Caldwell Radio Show, weekdays from 3-5 p.m. on  FM 98.5, FM 99.5, AM 1240, AM 1290 and FM 96.9.