Political Quotes

“Mr. President, a group of us chose to filibuster this bill because we think it wastes money. We think it gives money to one of the most wasteful Agencies in government, the National Science Foundation. Since the early 1970s and since William Proxmire began giving the Golden Fleece Award, for 50 years, there has been a recurrence of waste from the National Science Foundation, from NIH, and from even the State Department. We discussed earlier some of these, and I have a handful more. I think the American people should know where their money is going to. The NIH spent $2 million in research to see if using a hot tub can lower stress. Really? I think we probably could have just agreed to that, but no, we had to spend $2 million to study, if you are soaking in a hot tub, whether that helps to relieve your stress. The NIH also spent about $1 million to see if they could help people overcome their fear of dentists. Really? NIH spent almost $7 million of cancer research money to create an automatically flushing smart toilet. That is right--$7 million for an automatically flushing toilet. And here is the bonus: The toilet will actually take pictures of your derriere from the inside of the toilet bowl should you wish to have those for posterity. Seven million dollars for a smart toilet. How does this go on and nobody does anything? Do you know what we do? We flush more money down this smart toilet. We give them more money, and nobody bats an eye. This is the problem of government.…”