Let's Cut Some Spending: U.S. tax dollars to study helmet and seatbelt safety - in Ghana

Creative Commons

Remember the absolutely critical Omnibus spending bill Congress muscled through at the end of last year? It was 4,000 pages that no one read and cost taxpayers $1.7 trillion.

In our Let's Cut Some Spending series, ForAmerica will chronicle parts of the 2021 and 2022 spending bills from a variety of sources that you probably don't know about - programs, grants and spending of all kinds that should have never happened in the first place and many that are still happening.

Today’s offering: U.S. tax dollars to study helmet and seatbelt safety - in Ghana!

Every year, Republican Senator James Lankford lists different examples of federal waste.

This one was so peculiar it almost sounds made up.

From Lankford’s Senate website:

We, last year did a study on helmets and seat belts in Ghana to be able to study whether seat belts and helmets were effective for saving lives in Ghana. Can I just go ahead and answer that question for free? Seat belts and helmets are a good idea. They save lives. Free, I can go ahead and give you that advice. How do you know that? Because we’ve already spent millions of dollars in other studies here in the United States, but instead we spent money in Ghana studying helmets to see if they’re actually a good idea there, and amazingly they discovered, yes, they are.

Just when you think you've seen it all.

God bless the people of Ghana and we all hope they remain safe.

But AMERICAN tax dollars for THIS?!?

How does this even HAPPEN?