{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.paul.senate.gov/news-sen-rand-paul-announces-champion-interactive-waste-report-bracket/", "Sen. Rand Paul Announces Champion of the Interactive \u2018The Waste Report\u2019 Bracket", "2016-03-21", "2016", "2016-03", "Republican", "Senate", "KY", "Rand Paul", "P000603", "www.paul.senate.gov", "paul", "https://www.paul.senate.gov/news/", "scraper", "WASHINGTON, D.C. \u2013 U.S. Senator Rand Paul today announced \u201chelped deported illegal immigrants start businesses in their home country\u201d as the overall champion of the interactive bracket of \u2018The Waste Report,\u2019 known as the Tournament of Government Waste. On Friday, the last two groups standing that went head-to-head in the finals were: Helped deported illegal immigrants start businesses in their home country and Allow millionaires to live in taxpayer-subsidized public housing.\n\nThe interactive tournament bracket, consisting of four rounds over the span of five days, commenced on Tuesday, March 15th and concluded Friday, March 18th. Results for the tournament were counted at midnight at the end of each day and announced the following day.\n\nTo read Sen. Paul\u2019s wrap-up of the Tournament of Government Waste, view HERE or below. The results for the bracket can also be viewed below.\n\nWRAP-UP OF THE TOURNAMENT OF GOVERNMENT WASTE\n\nIllegal Immigrants\u2019 Business Plans!!!! After four intense rounds of voting, Illegal Immigrants\u2019 Business Plans emerged as the Champion of Government Waste. After surviving a close second round matchup against the Afghan Cricket League, Illegal Immigrant\u2019s Business Plans easily knocked off #1 seed, Paying to Send Pakistani Kids to Space Camp, to advance to the finals. In a back and forth, barn burner of a final round, Illegal Immigrants\u2019 Business Plans prevailed 52% to 48% over Millionaires in Public Housing.\n\nThis was the first year of The Waste Report\u2019s, Tournament of Government Waste, where we pitted 16 of the worst examples of government waste against each other, and let you decide which was the most egregious.\n\nThe champion, Illegal Immigrant Business Plans was the subject of the January 4th, 2016 Waste Report. You will recall that the Inter-America Foundation spent $50,000 in El Salvador to help aid returning deportees start businesses there. The Inter-American Foundation sought to clarify that the program was not \u201cintended\u201d to aid criminal deportees (those convicted of crimes in the U.S.) but did not rule out the possibility. It is no wonder such a program was chosen by the voters as the best (or maybe worst) example of government waste in this year\u2019s tournament.\n\nThese and many more examples of federal boondoggles can be found at Senator Paul and the Federal Spending Oversight Subcommittee\u2019s websites, where we\u2019ve chronicled 46 federal boondoggles totaling more than $1.12 billion. To put that number in prospective, it took the total one-year tax liability of 155,700 average Americans to fund this waste.\n\n###", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-08T20:47:03Z"]], "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-sen-rand-paul-announces-champion-interactive-waste-report-bracket/"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.7149470038712025, "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"}