The Weirdest Things Your Taxes Pay For

For fiscal hawks looking into ways to humiliate the government, there's never a lack of examples to show Washington's wastefulness. In October, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) released Wastebook 2012, a look at over $18 billion in projects that are bizarre, and often hard to justify.

Admittedly, $18 billion is just a drop in the vast sea of federal expenditures. For example, it's just over 2% of the defense budget, or 9% of the yearly cost of the Bush tax cuts. Still, it's hard to ignore over $1 million dollars spent on video game development or the hundreds of thousands put into creating a robotic rodent. If you're looking for a quick laugh -- or a little bit of righteous outrage -- take a peek at our gallery of weird government expenditures.

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