{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.paul.senate.gov/news-dr-rand-paul-releases-special-festivus-edition-waste-report/", "Dr. Rand Paul Releases Special \u2018Festivus\u2019 Edition of \u2018The Waste Report\u2019", "2017-12-22", "2017", "2017-12", "Republican", "Senate", "KY", "Rand Paul", "P000603", "www.paul.senate.gov", "paul", "https://www.paul.senate.gov/news/", "scraper", "FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:\n\nDecember 22, 2017\n\nContact: Press@paul.senate.gov, 202-224-4343\n\nWASHINGTON, D.C. \u2013 Today, U.S. Senator Rand Paul released a special \u201cFestivus: Airing of Grievances for 2017\u201d edition of The Waste Report, an ongoing project cataloguing egregious examples of waste within the U.S. government.\n\nIn its third year, Dr. Paul\u2019s Festivus Waste Report again shines a spotlight on wasteful spending and misplaced priorities that put taxpayers on the hook for the federal government\u2019s bad management. Dr. Paul\u2019s series has, over three years, documented approximately $6 billion in wasteful spending.\n\nThis year\u2019s edition also includes excerpts from \u201cWorldwide Waste: How the Government is Using and Losing Your Money Abroad,\u201d a 2017 Waste Report series that documented more than $3 billion of wasteful, taxpayer-funded endeavors overseas.\n\nHighlights from the Festivus Waste Report include the IRS failing to recover over $76 million in \u201cunallowable expenses\u201d to government contractors, and the Department of Transportation spending $1.5 million on a park bathroom in Queens, NY.\n\nYou can find Dr. Paul\u2019s \u201cFestivus: Airing of Grievances for 2017\u201d edition of The Waste Report, which totals up over $560 million in waste, HERE.\n\n###", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-08T22:19:19Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.paul.senate.gov/news-dr-rand-paul-releases-special-festivus-edition-waste-report/"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 2.2842041216790676, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}