For the past 11 years, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has released his annual “Festivus Report” to air grievances. While the name is a reference to a Seinfeld episode, the report itself is legitimate, detailing what he believes were some of the most egregious examples of the federal government wasting our tax dollars in the previous year.

Since the start of the report, the dollar amount of the government “waste” he cites has grown significantly.

In 2015, it was a little over a billion dollars. By 2019, it was $50 billion dollars. The latest report for 2025 showed that the figure hit a cool $1.639 trillion dollars. It’s worth mentioning that a huge portion of that total comes from interest payments on the national debt, which Senator Paul now includes in his overall tally. U.S. taxpayers paid $1.22 trillion dollars in interest just to service the national debt last year. That is significantly more than the Pentagon’s entire budget—and given the fact that that money is literally going to nothing other than interest, there’s a good case to be made to include that figure in the overall wasted spending report.

Setting the interest payments aside, let’s go through nine of the most interesting examples of government waste from the report.

The U.S. Supreme Court just issued a decision that expands your right to appeal a federal prison sentence. Now, I’m sure most people reading this won’t ever become a federal prisoner—but, if you ever do, or if someone you know does, they will now have more rights given the fact that the court threw out a significant limit on federal prisoner appeals. Let’s go through the details together.

Measles, once thought to have been eradicated in the United States, is making a resurgence. The latest numbers from the CDC show that the number of cases reported in 2025 was the most in the past 33 years. Let’s examine where these outbreaks are happening, as well as why.

Included among the provisions of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed into law by President Donald Trump on July 4th of last year, is something called a Trump Account. This is an investment account that all American kids are eligible for—and very notably—any American child born after Jan. 1, 2025, is eligible to receive a $1000 thousand dollar deposit into their account.

This is money that is not taxable; it’s not a loan, meaning you don’t have to pay it back, and also, because of the type of account that it is (an investment account that the child can’t touch until he’s 18) by the time your child is ready to take the money out, that $1,000 dollars might have grown substantially.

If the market continued to have the same historical returns that it typically does—8 percent or 10 percent a year—it means that by the time your child is 18, they will have an account with as much as $6,000 in it. And by the time they’re 28, that account could have upwards of $28,000 dollars in it. Meaning, that this is a fairly good opportunity, and something that you should definitely not miss.

Today let’s discuss the FBI’s latest move: ditching the building they’ve used as their headquarters for the past 50 years for a new location.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has been busy lately—recalling 29 U.S. ambassadors and senior diplomats from around the world, and issuing travel bans on some unlikely individuals. Let’s go through the details together.

Episode Resources:

🔵 Apply to Be Foreign Officer

🔵 Ambassadors Recalled:

https://bit.ly/4sfdUjf

https://bit.ly/4pUz7NL

🔵 EU Travel Ban:

https://bit.ly/4qopCpK

https://bit.ly/49hiBAc

https://bit.ly/4q1fIef

Episode Resources:

🔵 PFAS Map:

https://ept.ms/3K6I57P

🔵 Full Study:

https://ept.ms/3K60aTz

🔵 Water Testing Resources:

https://ept.ms/3K54Mt2

https://ept.ms/3OouxXW

https://ept.ms/44UOjj9

https://ept.ms/3OlMKVS