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America’s worst government spending disasters

Projects that wasted taxpayers' cash
Jazz-playing robots: $2 million (£1.5m)
Census Bureau's Super Bowl ad: $2.5 million (£1.9m)
Unused email software subscription: $12 million (£9.3m)
Maintaining unused cars: $13.5 million (£10.4m)
Study looking into the effectiveness of golf equipment in space: $15 million (£11.7m)
Camouflage that didn’t actually blend in: $28 million (£21.6m)
Atlanta’s streetcar, Georgia: $47.6 million (£36.7m)
Paul S Sarbanes Silver Spring Transit Center, Maryland: $55 million (£42.4m)
Peanuts for loan repayments program: $74 million (£57.1m)
Abandoned hotel in Kabul, Afghanistan: $85 million (£66m)
Unused flight tickets: $100 million (£77m)
Greenbrier Bunker, West Virginia: $113 million (£87.2m)
Overpriced penis pumps: $172 million (£133m)
West Los Angeles Home for Veterans, California: $253 million (£195m)
Power plant that is rarely used, Afghanistan: $335 million (£259m)
Preserving outdated technology: $337 million/year (£262m)
Cancelled Auburn Dam, California: $431 million (£336m)
Cancelled Air Force’s Air Operations Center (AOC): $745 million (£580m)
San Diego’s trolley expansion, California: $1.04 billion (£810m)
Cancelled US Air Force's Expeditionary Combat Support System: $1.1 billion (£856m)
Cancelled Secure Border Initiative: $1.15 billion (£895m)
Homeland Security's new headquarters: $1.5 billion (£1.2bn)
Maintaining abandoned buildings: $1.7 billion/year (£1.3bn)
Cancelled Superconducting Super Collider (SSC): $3.6 billion (£2.8bn)
Department of Veteran Affairs' EHR Projects: $4.98 billion (£3.9bn)
Cancelled NASA's Constellation program: $9 billion (£7bn)
Cancelled Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository, Nevada: $15 billion (£11.7bn)
Cancelled Future Combat Systems (FCS): $19.9 billion (£15.5bn)
F-35 Joint Strike Fighter: $1.5 trillion (£1.2tn)
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GABRIEL BOUYS/AFP/Getty Images

Projects that wasted taxpayers' cash

America's national debt has just ballooned to an eye-watering $22 trillion (£17tn) in 2019 – the highest it has ever been – so taxpayers' money should be spent wisely, you might think. However, there have been many cases, in which the government got it totally wrong, throwing away millions of peoples' hard-earned cash. From ridiculous studies in space to cancelled military projects that went massively over budget, here we take a look at some of the biggest wastes of money.

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LOVEMONEY

26 November 2019

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