November 2021 Squeal Award
The Taxpayer Turkey Trot

Pumpkin pie. Cranberry sauce. Mashed potatoes and gravy.

With all the delicious sides and trimmings at Thanksgiving dinner, it’s nearly impossible not to stuff yourself to the point where you feel like you are waddling.

As it turns out, the turkey on the dinner table also knows that feeling all too well.

While wild turkeys can run at a pace of six-miles-per-hour, farm raised turkeys move at a slower pace and waddle when they walk because they are bigger birds.

Those are the findings of a study that spent your tax dollars to put turkeys on a treadmill.

The taxpayer turkey trot received support from four different grants totaling $1.7 million that were served up by two government agencies, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Science Foundation (NSF). Despite supporting studies of turkeys on treadmills for nearly a decade, NIH lists no outcomes that have resulted from the experiments.

With our national debt approaching $30 trillion and higher prices making it difficult for families to put food on the table, we cannot afford to continue wasting taxpayer dollars funding fowl projects…and folks, this one is a real turkey!

That is why I am awarding my November 2021 Squeal Award to NIH and NSF and calling on the agencies to pardon these turkeys so they will no longer be gobbling up taxpayer dollars. Ending the gravy train for wasteful government spending, after all, would make every taxpayer thankful.

Do you have an example of government waste or inefficiencies that I should take a look at? Send me an email by clicking here.

Thank you!