Federal Insider: Should the U.S. spend $200,000 on how 500-year-old fish bones relate to Tanzanian social status?

Should Uncle Sam spend $200,000 to study how 500-year-old fish bones relate to the social status of residents in a Tanzanian port city?

Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) doesn’t think so.

That example from the National Science Foundation (NSF) comes from his “Federal Fumbles: 100 ways the government dropped the ball.” It’s the second annual installment on what he considers wasteful, inefficient government operations or spending on dubious projects.

It’s Lankford’s way of dramatizing the nation’s fiscal problems.

The 100 programs cited represent $247 billion in wasteful spending or inefficient regulations, according to Lankford.

“Although the federal debt wasn’t a major focus during the presidential campaign, it remains a serious impending crisis that must be addressed. In fiscal year 2016 alone, we had a $587 billion deficit and our federal debt is now an outrageous $19.5 trillion,” he said. “To lower the debt, we need to grow the economy, and we must root out inefficiencies, duplication, and wasteful spending wherever they exist. This ‘Federal Fumbles’ report provides specific examples of wasteful spending and unnecessary regulations that are not in the taxpayer’s best interest.”

For example, the fish bones.

Last year NSF funded research “to determine whether there is any correlation between where a family was in the social ladder and the type of food eaten,” said Lankford’s 152-page report. The location was Songo Mnara, Tanzania, “a major trading hub for the Indian Ocean from the 1300s to the 1500s, where gold, ivory, silver, perfumes, Chinese porcelain, and other valuable goods were traded among what is now the Middle East, India, and China.”

Lankford doesn’t scoff at the value of such research, at least not directly, but his report does question why the NSF funds it.

NSF was founded “to advance the national health, prosperity and welfare,” with “national” italicized for emphasis in his report. “It is difficult to determine, and NSF does not explain, how studying the remains of food consumed 800 years ago in a city on the other side of the planet accomplishes that objective.”