By Republican Sen. Rand Paul released his annual “Festivus Report” on December 23, 2025, alleging more than $1.6 trillion in wasteful federal spending over the past year, renewing his long-running critique of Washington’s fiscal priorities as the national debt approaches $40 trillion.
The report—named after the fictional holiday popularized by the 1990s sitcom Seinfeld—puts the total at $1,639,135,969,608 in what Paul characterizes as waste. Roughly $1.2 trillion of that sum reflects interest payments on the national debt, which the senator said has continued to swell despite repeated warnings from budget hawks.
“No matter how much taxpayer money Washington burns through, politicians can’t help but demand more,” Paul said in a statement accompanying the report. “Fiscal responsibility may not be the most crowded road, but it’s one I’ve walked year after year — and this holiday season will be no different. So, before we get to the Feats of Strength, it’s time for my Airing of (Spending) Grievances.”
'Tis the season for FESTIVUS🌲
This year's waste report tallies an
UNBELIEVABLE $1,639,135,969,608💸Read the report, air your grievances, and let us know which items are your favorite.https://t.co/NY9skPZTKR pic.twitter.com/lIg65SazAJ
— Senator Rand Paul (@SenRandPaul) December 23, 2025
Paul’s report catalogs a wide array of federal expenditures he deems questionable. Among them are more than $40 million spent by the Department of Health and Human Services on influencers to promote COVID-19 vaccinations to racial and ethnic minority groups, along with $1.5 million for celebrity influencer campaigns aimed at reducing drug use in “Latinx” communities and $1.9 million for a mobile phone-based intervention targeting childhood obesity among Latino families in Los Angeles County.
Animal research also drew scrutiny. The National Institutes of Health, according to the report, funded over $5 million for experiments involving dosing dogs with cocaine, more than $1 million to teach teenage ferrets to binge drink alcohol, roughly $13 million for ongoing experiments on beagles, and $14 million for projects in which monkeys played a video game modeled after The Price is Right.
Additional items cited include $2.1 million to collect saliva samples and conduct surveys at electronic dance music festivals in New York City, $3.3 million awarded to Northwestern University for initiatives involving “safe space ambassadors” and efforts to address “systemic racism,” and $2.4 million from the National Science Foundation to promote insects as a food source for humans.
The report also targets large-scale infrastructure and pandemic-era spending. Paul pointed to $7 billion allocated for electric vehicle charging stations that resulted in just 68 stations built nationwide, as well as nearly $200 billion in COVID-19 relief funds for schools that were used for expenses such as hotel rooms at Caesars Palace, Major League Baseball stadium rentals, and ice cream trucks.
While acknowledging steps taken by the Trump administration to rein in spending—including workforce reductions and rescissions of certain funds—Paul said those measures fall far short of what is needed to address the debt trajectory.
“This year, I’m spotlighting a jaw-dropping amount of government waste — the kind that makes you wonder if anyone in Washington has ever heard the word ‘priorities,’” he said, noting that the Congressional Budget Office projects an average annual debt increase of $23.9 trillion over the next decade.
Observed each year on December 23, Festivus features an “airing of grievances,” a ritual Paul has adopted to highlight what he sees as persistent fiscal excesses across administrations.
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