{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.paul.senate.gov/news-trapped-waste/", "Trapped by Waste", "2016-08-08", "2016", "2016-08", "Republican", "Senate", "KY", "Rand Paul", "P000603", "www.paul.senate.gov", "paul", "https://www.paul.senate.gov/news/", "scraper", "WASHINGTON, D.C. \u2013 Today, U.S. Senator Rand Paul released the latest edition of \u2018The Waste Report,\u2019 an ongoing project cataloguing egregious examples of waste within the U.S. government.\n\nIn today\u2019s report, Dr. Paul turns the spotlight on nearly $600,000 of taxpayer money going to offset some of the Wolf Trap Foundation\u2019s operation and production costs. While Wolf Trap is supposed to be structured to protect taxpayers, the funds are flowing from an earmark many members of Congress may not realize exists \u2013 an earmark even the National Park Service has tried to eliminate.\n\n\u2018The Waste Report\u2019 can be found HERE or below.\n\n***\n\nOutside the DC area, few people have probably even heard of Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts, let alone taken in a concert there. However, for those inside the Beltway (metaphorically speaking[1]), Wolf Trap is a well-known venue for a variety of summer concerts. Unfortunately, whether you have heard of it or not, Wolf Trap is trapping nearly $600,000 of taxpayer money for wasteful, DC-insider hypocrisy.\n\nOn its surface, Wolf Trap is structured to protect taxpayers. As a kind of public-private partnership, the National Park Service maintains the park (which includes hiking trails and the like), while the non-profit Wolf Trap Foundation is \u201cresponsible for artistic programming, public relations, marketing, box office functions, and providing stagehands and certain other employees who are directly related to the presentation of performing arts.\u201d[2]\n\nIt seems like a reasonable and clear division between the national park and its use as a venue for stage entertainment. However, the line seems to have recently been blurred, as the Park Service is handing over $594,000 to the Foundation to offset some of the cost of operations and production.[3]\n\nDo not blame the Park Service! Their hands are tied. This money comes from a $2.2 million earmark for the National Capital Area Performing Arts program, which funds (or subsidizes) a variety of concerts and entertainment around Washington. In fact, the National Park Service has unsuccessfully asked Congress to eliminate this earmark.[4] While Congress ignored those requests, many members may have just not known the earmark was there. You see, the earmark is not in the nearly 900-page text of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2016 (H.R. 2029) or the more than 200 pages of committee reports accompanying the bill. The earmark is on page 16 of the 109-page explanatory statement for division G of the Appropriations Act. Vague and hard to find \u2013 almost the definition of \u201csnuck in.\u201d\n\nIn the case of Wolf Trap, it even gets worse. The purpose of the funds is to \u201cpay a portion of the costs of the union stagehands that work backstage\u2026.\u201d[5] So, DC\u2019s most-connected people, many of whom are strong union supporters, are using taxpayer money to alleviate themselves and fellow Washingtonians of paying union prices.\n\nThe FSO subcommittee calculates that if concertgoers had to pay the full cost of Wolf Trap concerts with unionized stage hands, ticket prices would increase by only about 4 percent.[6] That comes out to roughly $5 a ticket for the most expensive seats.[7] But even if the increase were 40 percent or 400 percent, that cost should be paid by the patron who chooses to take in a show, not the taxpayer who has no choice whatsoever.\n\nIn case you are wondering, about 84 average Americans a year have to turn over their hard-earned money in taxes so Washingtonians can save $5 on concert tickets. By the way, Fairfax County, VA, where Wolf Trap is located, is the second wealthiest county in America, with a median income over $110,000. Bordering Fairfax are the #1 (Loudoun \u2013 $117k), #6 (Arlington \u2013 $101k), and #8 (Montgomery, MD \u2013 $97k) wealthiest counties in America.[8]\n\n###\n\n[1] Wolf Trap is actually a few miles outside the Beltway off the Dulles Toll Rd.", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-08T21:00:38Z"]], "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-trapped-waste/"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 16.470939153805375, "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"}