FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
April 11, 2017
Contact: Press@paul.senate.gov, 202-224-4343
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Rand Paul released the latest edition of The Waste Report, an ongoing project cataloguing egregious examples of waste within the U.S. government.
It’s unlikely the United Kingdom would top anyone’s list of regions of the world that need a better understanding of the United States. Yet, once again, Dr. Paul’s Waste Report covers American taxpayers footing the bill for such a learning program.
You can find out more in this week’s Waste Report HERE or below.
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Waste Report readers will recall last year’s “A Better, More Peaceful Understanding of Waste,” where we discussed the U.S. Embassy in London spending $90,000 to foster better understanding with the United Kingdom.
Well, it turns out they are at it again. Late last year, our Embassy in London offered a grant worth as much as $75,000 to help bring as many as 10 “social media journalists and bloggers” to the U.S. to explore “American values and cultural issues that shape the American identity and deepen U.K. youth audiences understanding of the United States in the 21st century.”
The grant opportunity mentioned sending the bloggers to visit “cities such as Charleston, Orlando, Dallas, San Francisco, and Chicago” to learn about American issues and themes – in other words, a real American experience, funded by the U.S. taxpayer. With firsthand experiences in these cities, the bloggers presumably would be better able to convey Americanism to their audience across the pond.
All that would make sense if this were 1890 or even 1990, but, as The Waste Report has noted before, thanks to the Internet, 24-hour news, and affordable air transportation, our understanding of the U.K., and theirs of the U.S., is not lacking.
In fact, nearly 4 million Brits visit the U.S. each year, and 1.2 million visit more than one state. These people probably do not need their bloggers’ input to have an American experience, as they have their own or at the least have a high probability of knowing someone who does.
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https://www.paul.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/WASTE%20REPORT%20UK.pdf
U.S. Embassy London, Public Affairs Section. Title: “Exploring American Values.” Funding Opportunity No. DOS-London-PD-2017-02. https://www.grants.gov/web/grants/view-opportunity.html?oppId=289913
Ibid.
http://travel.trade.gov/outreachpages/download_data_table/2014_UK_Market_Profile.pdf