Your tax dollars at work

SPEAKING of government spending and transparency, credit the group Open the Books with creating a website that maps by ZIP code every government grant doled out by Washington. The pork parade is quite impressive, if not frustratingly maddening.

According to the site, the feds handed out $583 billion in such largess during fiscal 2016. Some of the money no doubt is spent on useful endeavors. But much of it is directed toward studies or projects that taxpayers might find highly questionable. Other funds support wealthy communities or large, profitable corporations.

For instance, Adam Andrzejewski, founder and CEO of OpenTheBooks.com, noted in a recent essay that 33 companies “in the Fortune 100 received $3.2 billion in federal grants” between fiscal 2014 and 2016.

Here are additional examples of your tax dollars at work, highlighted by Mr. Andrzejewski:

■ The University of Northern Illinois took home $173,089 from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to document daily “micro-aggressions” directed at “radically diverse bisexual women.”

■ A $12,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts paid for South Dakota State’s Hobo Day, the school’s annual homecoming celebration during which students dress up as hobos for a parade.

■ NASA awarded more than $658,000 to an Alabama outfit that produced two seasons of “Space Racers,” a children’s cartoon that promoted various galactic adventures.

■ A company called Hydroglyde Coatings won $200,000 in taxpayer money to design an improved condiment lubricant.

These examples are but a few specks floating amid a sea of government waste and extravagance. Keep this in mind the next time you hear a politician or bureaucrat shriek that they need more of your money because “there’s no place left to cut.” @highsnobiety on a rapper war:

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