Sen. Paul’s 2025 Festivus Report chronicles $1.6 trillion in government waste

by WorldTribune Staff, December 24, 2025 Real World News

Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul on Tuesday released his 2025 Festivus Report which he said documents $1,639,135,969,608 in government waste.

The report details how taxpayer funds go to such projects as teaching ferrets to binge drink alcohol, dosing dogs with cocaine, and collecting saliva samples and surveying partiers at EDM clubs and festivals in New York City about their drug use.

“No matter how much taxpayer money Washington burns through, politicians can’t help but demand more. Fiscal responsibility may not be the most crowded road, but it’s one I’ve walked year after year — and this holiday season will be no different. So, before we get to the Feats of Strength, it’s time for my Airing of (Spending) Grievances,” said Paul, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

Paul noted that White Coat Waste “helped us uncover hundreds of millions of your hard-earned tax dollars funding labs, gain-of-function research, and brutal experiments on dogs, monkeys, and rats.”

The spending includes:
• $5.2 Million to Inject Beagles with Cocaine and Meth (NIH): An ongoing project that’s escalated from $2.3 million in 2022, now including methamphetamine injections – all on helpless dogs.

• $13.8 Million for Dr. Fauci’s Maximum-Pain Tick Bite Experiments on Beagles (NIH): These gruesome tests continue under the former NIAID director’s legacy, subjecting puppies to agonizing bites without relief.

• $1 Million for Dangerous USDA-CCP Bird Flu Gain-of-Function Collaboration (USDA): A risky partnership with Wuhan-linked experimenters in China, raising alarms about potential pandemics.

• $77 Million for the Navy’s Outdated Marine Mammal Program (DOD): Despite congressional pressure to shut it down, the Navy keeps wasting cash on training seals and dolphins.

• $2.8 Million to Implant Aborted Human Fetal Tissue into Animals for ‘BLT Mice’ (DOD): Experimenters are grafting bone, liver, and thymus from fetuses into lab rodents – a disturbing use of taxpayer dollars.

• $54 Million to the Disgraced EcoHealth Alliance (USAID): This group, infamous for its Wuhan lab ties and gain-of-function work that may have sparked Covid, keeps getting handouts despite being debarred.

• $14.6 Million to Force Monkeys to Play a ‘Plinko’ Game Knockoff (NIH, NSF, DOD): Monkeys have holes drilled into their skulls for this bizarre “Price Is Right”-style video game experiment.

• $1 Million to Create Binge-Drinking Ferrets (VA): Turning animals into alcoholics – because apparently, that’s a priority for veterans’ affairs.

Justin Goodman, Senior Vice President at White Coat Waste Project, praised Sen. Paul’s report in a statement:

“Year after year, Senator Paul’s Festivus report is a reliable roadmap of reckless spending to slash, and White Coat Waste is proud that our investigations of wasteful government animal tests are included once again.

“This year’s report credits WCW for exposing hundreds of millions of tax dollars wasted on hooking beagles on cocaine and meth, turning ferrets into binge-drinkers, teaching monkeys and sea lions to play video games, and more. Sen. Paul’s Festivus Report doesn’t just document waste, it helps decimate it.

“Last year’s installment included WCW’s exposé of a $10 million Pentagon contract for cat constipation experiments that was soon canceled by the Trump Administration. Sen. Paul has been leading the way to get the feds out of the $20 billion animal testing business before it was cool. The solution is simple: Stop the money. Stop the madness!”

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