Day 1

1 - The most unproductive and unpopular Congress in modern history does nothing while America struggles - (Congress) $132 million.  Congress is "on pace to make history [for] the least productive legislative year" since 1947, with just 61 bills passed and made law in 2012 to date. "Even taking into account bills the House and Senate are expected to pass in the upcoming lame-duck session, the current Congress could easily have the lowest level of legislative activity since statistics began being tabulated," according to one observer. ($132 million is 10 percent of the budget for member, leadership, and committee offices.

2 - Professional sports loophole – (Taxes) $91 million - The NFL, NHL, and PGA all classify themselves as non-profit organizations. Taxpayers may be losing at least $89.9 million subsidizing these tax loopholes for professional sports leagues that generate billions of dollars annually in profits.

3 - Junk food, luxury drinks, soap operas, and billions of dollars in improper food stamp payments – (Department of Agriculture) $4.5 billion.  Lax controls and mismanagement in the food stamp program resulted in billions of dollars being spent not on healthy meals for hungry kids but instead wasted on questionable or illegal expenditures, including Starbucks, alcohol, diapers, and guns.

4 - Oklahoma keeps unused airport open to collect federal checks – (OK) $450,000 - The Oklahoma Aeronautics Commission (OAC) voted this year to keep the scarcely used Lake Murray State Park Airport open simply to receive $150,000 in federal funds it can then transfer to other airports. The airport has just one landing per month -- it is essentially unused.

5 - Moroccan pottery classes – (U.S. Agency for International Development) $27 million - A USAID development program in Morocco has failed, the IG found. Part of the program included pottery classes in which the instructor used materials not available locally, and the translator for the classes was not fluent in English.

6 - Out-of-this-world Martian food tasting – (HI) $947,000 - NASA is studying what food astronauts could eat on Mars, by simulating a Mars outpost at a barren location in Hawaii.

7 - When robot squirrels attack – (CA) $325,000 - An NSF grant was used to create a robot squirrel to study how squirrels and rattlesnakes interact. Previous research on this relationship already exists.

8 - USDA’s caviar dreams – (ID) $300,000 - USDA gave a grant to a caviar producer in Idaho for marketing.

9 - Bailed out tourist boat sinking private business – (AK) $3.3 million - Dept. of Transportation gave an Alaskan tribe millions to start a ferry that competes with existing private ferries, who are now struggling severely.

10 - Phantom, unused grant accounts draw fees – (Department of Health and Human Services) $2 million - HHS pays millions of dollars annually in maintenance fees for grant accounts that are expired or empty, but that the agency forgot to close.