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NOT FOR NUTHIN’: Joanna can’t stand government waste

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See this story at BrooklynDaily.com.

By Joanna DelBuono

Brooklyn Daily

Medicare more than spent $170 million on penis pumps between 2006 and 20011. Really. I can’t get my insurance company to pick up a visit to a nutritionist but Medicare blew more than a million smackeroos on pumps to help out seniors with erectile dysfunction.

If that’s the case, let me tell you there is a lot more wrong with the medical insurance debacle and government waste in this country than Obamacare is ever going to fix.

According to Reuters, Medicare covered nearly 474,000 claims for the vacuum erection systems.

The item that ran in Time Magazine’s “Swampland” political website said Washington conservatives told Medicare to tell those seniors who really do want one to “just buy it yourself.”

After reading this hair-raising article, I decided to do a Google search and see what else our government is wasting our tax dollars on. All I can say is I’m speechless. And you know it takes a lot to render me unable to speak.

A report by MSN Money points out these nearly dozen examples of government waste including:

• $3.3 million was used to bailout a failing Alaska tourist boat that he says is sinking private business.

• More than $505,000 was used to promote a special hair and beauty product for cats and dogs

• $97 thousand for floating outhouses for Oregon fisherman.

• $27 million to train Moroccans to design and make pottery.

• $15 million to help Russian weapon institutes to recruit Russian nuclear scientists.

• $705,970 to a brewing company in New Hampshire to build three new brew tanks for beer and set up a sewerage connection

• $639,884 to develop a beef jerky that resembles a fruit roll up.

• $325,000 on creating a robot squirrel just so we can find out how a squirrel interacts with a rattlesnake.

Really a robot squirrel? Here is a thought: why not use the real thing. Squirrels have been fighting snakes for centuries. It would be a lot cheaper to just keep the squirrels away from the snakes from the get go.

Lesser amounts included $35,000 for a vending machine for library books (isn’t that what libraries are supposed to do?); 25 grand for the Watermelon queen to take a tour; and 20 grand to teach children how to juggle and perform other circus skills. How about teaching children how to read and write, then they can read a book on how to juggle.

Not for Nuthin, but its no wonder we can’t stop rising unemployment, rampant homelessness, and reign in a gazillion-dollar deficit. Maybe the government should considered waste reduction surgery as an ObamaCare option instead of vacuum pumps.

Follow me on Twitter @JDelBuono.

Joanna DelBuono writes about national issues every Wednesday on BrooklynDaily.com. E-mail her at jdelbuono@cnglocal.com.

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