With the dawn of the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), a massive light has been shone on federal spending and its recipients.
Thus far, billionaire and X owner Elon Musk has boasted of massive cuts to federal spending through DOGE, often remarking about the perceived outlandish ways taxpayer money is being spent.
Most recently, Musk targeted the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), putting the agency next on the chopping block. President Donald Trump press secretary Karoline Leavitt revealed some USAID projects on Monday, which included $47,000 for a transgender opera in Colombia, $32,000 for a trans comic book in Peru and $70,000 for the production of a DEI musical in Ireland.
Alabama is no stranger to federal funds, receiving billions every year, a huge chunk of which goes to its institutions of higher education.
According to the federal spending watchdog site Data Republican, Auburn University received tens of millions in federal grants in recent years. Most of the funds went to standard programs, such as $3 million to the Healthy Meal Initiative. Others were more esoteric, such as a $3 million grant to study cotton leaf roll dwarf virus disease management or the $2.5 million to “elucidate host-pathogen interactions of polymicrobial infections in broiler chicken production.”
One of the more unusual expenditures was a $1 million grant to study the “physiological genomics of sexually dimorphic developmental plasticity on butterfly wings,” which refers to the study of the genetic mechanisms of how the environment during development can affect different wing patterns between male and female butterflies.
Another grant included $1.6 million to study “mitigating climate change through forest carbon sequestration programs,” a long-winded term for managing forests to better store carbon dioxide.
To connect with the author of this story or to comment, email craig.monger@1819news.com.
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