Fluff

The United States debt has now surpassed the 13 trillion mark,  the money supply figures are dire, and the stock market has shed a thousand points in the last month.  The federal government is whipping out the Uncle Sam credit card to fund new programs, and individual states can't pay their most basic operating costs.  So why are we still spending money on fluff? 

For example, do we really need more off-road vehicle trails in the Arizona wilderness?  How many people would use them?  A few hundred?   Wouldn't the half a mil be better spent on infrastructure projects that would be utilized by thousands/millions of citizens instead of recreation for a select few?
Oh, the money is in the wrong cookie jar, you say?  Well, move it!

Here is another example: how many trout nature centers does one state need?  I know, let's build two within a few miles of each other!  This fancy visitor's center was completed just a few years ago at a cost of five million dollars.  It's gorgeous to the point of "you gotta be kidding me; is there a dress code?".  So why do we need to spend a million bucks on this?   We're talking trout, fer crissakes!

What will it take to stop this frivolous, irresponsible waste of taxpayer money?  It's happening everywhere, in every community in the country.  We point at these projects and mutter "well that's certainly absurd" but we don't seem to have a mechanism to halt the flood of fiscal stupidity.  It's a monster that feeds upon itself.