A new report on how your tax dollars are being spent has been released today and it may get your fired up.
Here's just a few of the things your money is being spent on by the National Science Foundation:
1. Robot folding laundry - Don't get too excited -- it cost $1.5 million to create and takes 25 minutes to fold a single towel.
2. Shrimp on treadmill - Researchers figured out how to put Shrimp on a treadmill and to get more than $500,000 in the process.
3. Farmville -you may think Farmville on Facebook is a colossal waste of time ... but what if you got a $300,000 grant to study how it helps build personal relationships, or not?
These projects have one thing in common: YOU paid for them ... they're taxpayer funded grants given by the National Science Foundation, the subject of a scathing new report by Senator Tom Coburn.
"What is says to me is they have too much money if they're going to spend money on things like that."
Then there's the agency's Arlington, Virginia headquarters -- $19 million in rent a year and they are looking to move to a new building for $26 million in annual rent.
NSF says the move is necessary because its current 20 year lease is almost over.
Coburn's report also cites JELLO WRESTLING at an NSF project in Antarctica, although NSF says those are contractors, not employees.
Either way, Coburn says the spending is just out of control.
NSF strongly defends its projects, telling us they, quote "have advanced the frontiers of science and engineering, improved Americans' lives, and provided the foundations for countless new industries and jobs."
That's true. One NSF project led to the creation of Google, another led to the invention of bar codes
What do you think needs to be done to wrangle this wasteful spending? Or do you think it's going to change at all?

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