Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., told Newsmax on Monday that the latest installment of his book, "Federal Fumbles," highlights 50 examples of the federal government's waste of taxpayer dollars.
"I'm a conservative, which means I do believe in government," Lankford said during an appearance on Newsmax's "National Report." "Government should exist. We need government. We need government to do its job, and not someone else's job, and certainly not waste our money.
"We have tax dollars we expect to go to roads, we expect to go to national defense, and border security. We have key things that we need to do as a nation, and right now there's a lot of money that's actually being just wasted, that's being just thrown around in different places."
Lankford added: "What I've tried to highlight in 'Federal Fumbles' this year was 50 examples of things that we spent money on that didn't have enough oversight, that were just wasteful, that most Americans will look at and say, Why are we paying for a study of French butchers in Paris and the secret language of French butchers since the 13th century? Why are we doing that?
"Why are we paying for a butterfly study in Germany, where we paid a Swedish scientist to go to Germany to study butterflies in Europe?"
The monthslong drama in which Republicans and Democrats clashed over federal spending cuts resulted in a quiet denouement Saturday, when President Joe Biden signed legislation to raise the U.S. debt ceiling and narrowly avert an unprecedented default on the national debt.
When asked to estimate how much wasteful government spending goes on, Lankford said it was "maybe a million, maybe half a million" for the two examples he gave.
"But the old saying, 'a million here, a million there,' and you actually start talking about real money at some point," he said. "So we identify 50 different, low-hanging fruit examples to say this is just wasteful spending. Some of these are areas where we need more oversight, some of them are earmarks that are out there."
Lankford said California received a $4 million earmark for the Napa Valley wine walking path.
With Napa Valley being "one of the wealthiest communities in the world," Lankford said he doesn't "know why the people in Oklahoma need to help chip in to be able to do a walking path through Napa Valley for their wine country area.
"I think they have got enough cash to be able to cover that. Why are we having to be able to pay for that? So these are just practical examples to say, when we talk about waste and spending, there are definitely areas that we can reduce spending and to be able to focus on national security, border security, infrastructure — the things we should be doing."
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