WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — The US government has wasted more than $290 million in taxpayer dollars over the past ten years on an agricultural grant program for business plan development and agricultural marketing, including $45,000 to market pumpkin donuts as healthy, US Senator Dan Coats said in his “Waste of the Week” speech on the Senate Floor.
“Over the past ten years, this program handed out over $290 million,” Coats stated on Tuesday. “This is a pretty sweet deal for grant recipients, but pretty expensive for the taxpayer.”
Other uses of the grants include processing olives, developing and marketing wine and hard cider as well as cheese and chicken marketing.
“The federal government should not choose which farmers need taxpayer dollars to market their products,” Coats said. “Picking winners and losers distorts the role of government and, even worse, wastes taxpayer dollars in doing so.”
Every week Coats takes to the Senate floor to highlight US government waste in a “Waste of the Week” speech.
