There are plenty of Democrats out there who will claim building a wall on our southern border is racist. However, plenty of Democrats would rather look more moderate by saying they oppose the wall because they don’t think it would work. I think it doesn’t take much to debunk the phony argument that the wall would be ineffective, but if they really want to talk about the effective use of taxpayer money, I’m happy to do so. Let’s talk about what those same Democrats want to do with your government dollars. Do they want to bolster our military? Do they want to take better care of our national parks? Do they want to decrease the national debt? Nope. They want to study how fast turtles go.
Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa was the one to bring the infamous “turtles on a treadmill” study to the Senate floor. According to her, the federally-funded National Science Foundation and National Institute for Health gave four grants so scientists could determine how fast turtles, turkeys, and other animals could go on a treadmill. The results were less than shocking. Sen. Ernst reported “It turns out turtles are really, really slow. In fact, this study found that turtles moved at nearly the same pace as dead turtles that were also put on a treadmill.” Sen. Ernst continued to explain that we’ll never know just how much money was spent on this study because most federal agencies don’t have to disclose how much they spend on each project.
I’m not holding my breath that the federal government suddenly decided to be frugal when conducting this study, but let’s give them the benefit of the doubt. Still, if the four grants put together only added up to the cost of a membership at the YMCA and a box of turtle food, they still spent too much money on this study. The only thing more obvious than the fact that turtles are slow is the fact that our southern border is in desperate need of a wall. The federal government should spend our money keeping Americans safe, and building up our military, and securing our border. They should use our money to defend our Constitution. They shouldn’t be giving our money to some egghead for a windfall of taxpayer cash to do silly studies.
