In recent days Democrats and the national media have begun telling us that President-Elect Donald Trump’s policies will be bad for the environment, his staff picks are terrible, his tariffs won’t work and will only hurt the poor, and that his deportation plans for illegal aliens will be cruel. All these are the same old anti-Trump remarks.

However, the president-elect’s plan to streamline the government by eliminating waste, duplicate programs, and agencies that no longer have a purpose seems to really disturb many Washington insiders who are now telling us that attempts to streamline our government have never worked and that Trumps won’t either. Many of course have a vested interest in blocking efforts to drain the Washington swamp.

Despite what many tell us, questionable spending, plain old pork barrel spending and unneeded agencies do exist in the federal government.

These are a few examples of questionable spending by the federal government that are just the tip of the iceberg.

— The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases spent $478,188 to turn monkeys transgender. It’s doubtful the monkeys’ parents were even told.

— The State Department gave $25,000 in grants to Chinese surfers. It probably went for efforts to steal US surfboard secrets.

— A $188,000 grant went to determine why Americans resist using the metric system. I suspect It’s because it’s a French invention.

— Harvard spent $75,000 in federal grants to blow lizards off trees with leaf blowers.

— A $15 million grant went to study the effectiveness of golf equipment in space. It would have been much cheaper to have asked “moon golfer” the late Alan Shepard when he was still with us.

— I’m not making this one up, a $150,000 grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services went to fund a workshop entitled Gingerbread Adventures where gingerbread houses designed to be earthquake resistant were tested on an earthquake simulator.

— A grant for a $300,000 study went to determine if playing with Barbie Dolls helped women better recognize faces. Turns out playing with Barbie didn’t help.

— $817,000 for a study at SUNY Buffalo comparing human drool to ape, monkey, and other primate drool to determine when human saliva evolved to its current form. Why bother?

— While our border was being overwhelmed by illegal aliens $250 million was spent to improve border security in Lebanon, Egypt, Tunisia, and Oman.

— The National Science Foundation conducted a $450.000 study to determine if dinosaurs could sing like their closest living relatives the birds. Turns out they couldn’t. A ten minute meeting with an ornithologist and a paleontologist would have given them the same answer.

— In 2019 the National Institute of Health gave $708,466 in grants to the University of London to get Zebrafish addicted to nicotine and observe the results. As a reformed smoker I think this was a terrible thing to do to innocent fish.

Examples of obsolete, unnecessary, or barely functioning agencies that could be eliminated:

— Created in 1935 when 90% of rural homes were without electricity, the Rural Electrification Administration and its one thousand employees continue working on rural electrification at a time when the only persons without electricity are those voluntarily living off the grid. What do they do all day at the REA?

— The Rural Housing Development Service made housing loans in rural areas during the depression. It continues making loans totaling $1 billion per year with one of the highest default rates of any government program.

— The Natural Resource Conservation Service was set up in 1935 to help control soil erosion. It has 12,000 employees with a budget of $800 million per year yet the General Accounting Office found no difference in soil erosion between areas participating in the program and those that don’t.

— The Arms Control and Disarmament Agency was created in 1962 to decrease the number of nuclear weapons deployed by the US and the then Soviet Union. However, the number of warheads increased from a few hundred in 1962 to more than 10,000 in 1990.

— The TSA was created as a result of 911 to protect airline passengers from terrorist attacks. However, several studies have shown that the TSA is engaged in security theater making passengers feel safe without providing security. Aviation security experts agree that the locking of cockpit doors has done more for passenger safety then any TSA actions. Further in tests of the screening process TSA employees failed to find explosives and concealed weapons at checkpoints 95% of the time. Many feel that private security would do a better job at less cost.

— The Department of Education, created in 1977, has presided over nearly fifty years of declining student achievement and falling test scores. The US got along without it for 200 years and could easily do so now.

These are but a sample of wasteful government spending and of agencies that could be eliminated. I hope that President-Elect Trump and his team of Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy who will lead the “Department of Government Efficiency” will persevere in this task despite criticism and activity by Washington insiders to derail it. Spending must be reined in. The federal workforce has become bloated and agencies that no longer provide any real service to the nation have been allowed to continue in existence.

Faced with a constantly increasing deficit, we have to get serious about making government more efficient and ensuring that taxpayer dollars are spent wisely.

Thomas Kirkpatrick Sr. is a Silver Creek resident. Send comments to editorial@observertoday.com