Ahhh…it’s February. It’s the month when we reach the half way point of winter. In Illinois, it’s hardly a cause for celebration. Often some of our coldest days of the season are this month.
Oh to be in Scottsdale, Arizona, this week!
Why so? It’s time for the annual TPC WM Phoenix Open running February 5-8. (translation: TPC is a network of golf properties) The sponsor is a garbage company. Well, actually a “waste management” firm. The biggest.
Literally, Waste Management!
They do a fabulous job on this tournament with hundreds of volunteers involved. It is also the wildest and least orthodox golf crowd you’ll see all year. Yelling—no—screaming at players. Drinking as they go, and especially at the famed 16th stadium hole. It’s a short par three where fans boo anyone who can’t hit a golf ball straight enough to get close to the hole off the tee.
On the other hand, get a hole-in-one and the crowd throws beer onto the course—along with who knows what else—and things don’t settle down until, well, I’m not actually sure when! It’s great theatre! And great TV.
I sort of wish we had a similar 16th hole experience in Springfield and Washington DC, where our legislators gather. Boo birds would have plenty to scream about from the chambers over the new legislated funding.
Let’s first consider Washington DC. Kentucky Senator Rand Paul started off the New Year by sharing his annual Festivus Report. This is a collection of government pet projects that taxpayers get stuck funding. It would be funny if it weren’t so serious.
His financial numbers alone should scare us. This year, Paul’s waste report added up to a whopping $1.6 trillion—almost breaking the abacus! That number included $1.22 trillion in interest payments on our national debt—which amounts to $38.5 trillion!
Too many items to cover, but a few that Senator Paul included are experiments dosing dogs with cocaine, teaching ferrets how to binge-drink, and a program to teach monkeys how to play a video game inspired by “The Price is Right.”
Total bill? A whopping $14.6 million. There was also $2 million spent on “gender-affirming care” in Guatemala through USAID.
Senator Paul is doing us all a favor by revealing things that America’s founders would be shocked and sickened by. Unfortunately, not enough of our federal legislators find such expenditures repulsive.
We have no reason to rejoice here in Illinois! Our own law makers have plenty of waste on their hands, too.
Let’s start with the most recent favorite charity of Springfield: NASCAR! According to the Illinois Policy Institute, our state’s 2026 budget included $12 million for NASCAR. The funding was apparently approved in pieces—but “cash was handed out too fast for anyone to see exactly where it was going.”
For example, a $5 million grant was provided to NASCAR from our state’s general revenue fund for “costs associated with operating expenses.” Next was a $5 million grant from the Build Illinois Bond Fund for “costs associated with capital improvements.” Details? You want DETAILS?? None provided. Other funding was passed for NASCAR by the Enjoy Illinois Tourism club of big spenders.
Want more? How about our state approving $40 million for a high school sports complex at the alma mater of Illinois House Speaker Chris Welch. And when it comes to “pork barrel spending,” get this: a $7 million grant has been approved to move University of Illinois pigs. Pigs you say? Yes. Administrators want the pigs out of their current hangout at the U’s Urbana—Champaign’s swine research center to a new location.
Why? So the land can be “redeveloped.” Fine for the swine. But should taxpayers pay for this?
The Illinois Policy Institute reports that state spending “grew from $35.4 billion in FY2015 to $53.1 billion by FY2025.” In ten years! Worse yet, our spending without limits keeps our government in debt! Proverbs 22:7 tells us,
“The rich rules over the poor, and the borrower is the slave of the lender.” (ESV)
I thought we are against slavery!?
Like I suggested, let’s put a “16th hole” crowd surrounding these federal and state officials as they vote on these items. Let the boo birds weigh in. Cheer for the “no votes” as needed.
But be nice. No throwing any cups of beer.
