It’s been decades since American politics has seen someone with as much character as the late Wisconsin Senator William Proxmire (D).
Born in 1915, Proxmire’s formative years were based in the Great Depression of the 1920’s and ‘30’s. As with most people living during those times, Proxmire lived his life as though every penny was precious – and they were.
Newspapers cost 2¢, apples were 3¢, gasoline was roughly 18¢, cars went for a lofty $600, while a modest house could be had for $1200, in 1932. Those were Proxmire’s formative years when annual incomes were $1300 for a bus driver, $3100 for a college teacher, $2400 for a dentist, and just over $900 for a construction worker. Throughout the 1930’s, the federal tax rate – based on income – was about 5%.
Times were definitely different nearly 100-years ago, and those tough financial times were not unlike our lives today under a layer of manure called “Bidenomics.” With a complicit media and overly willing Democrat Party lying to the entire world about the economic state of America since 2021, we find ourselves mired waist deep in a stinky mess.
Senator William Proxmire brought something into the federal government during his term from 1975-1988. Throughout those thirteen years he became a celebrity of sorts by exposing unbelievable waste of guvment resources in the form of precious tax dollars.
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| Senator William Proxmire |
Publicly handing out awards meant to shame the wasteful guvment agencies, Proxmire used his position to garner wide publicity for his Golden Fleece Awards.
He handed our 168 of those awards in an attempt to curtail his squandering fellow politicians’ carefree ways of pandering via financial redistribution. Taking scarce tax money from one person to appear beneficial to another is, at best, smarmy. And Proxmire led a campaign to help stop this folly.
In 1975, Proxmire gave a Golden Fleece Award to the Federal Aviation Administration for spending $57,800 ($289,209 inflation adjusted) to study the measurements of 432 airline stewardesses, including the ‘distance from knee to knee while sitting’ and measuring the ‘length of the buttocks,’” per The Washington Post.
Further, The Post stated: “In 1978, The National Institute for Mental Health earned a Fleece award for its $97,000 ($400,489 inflation adjusted) study on the activities inside a Peruvian brothel, where the researchers said repeated visits were made in the interests of accuracy.” You betcha. Wink, wink.
Another look into the sleazy world of guvment via The Washington Post, “In 1977, Proxmire gave an award to the Justice Department for spending $27,000 (119,938 inflation adjusted) to determine ‘why prisoners want to get out of jail.’ In 1979, the Pentagon was recognized for a $3,000 study ($11,123 inflation adjusted) to determine ‘if members of the military should carry umbrellas in the rain.’”
All this sad truth brings us to early 2025, on the cusp of the swearing-in of President-elect Donald J. Trump. Making regular tours across the nation before and since his resounding election in November 2024, Trump has been touting his proposed agenda to help all people while reducing the monumental federal budget deficit and debt.
With critics laughing and giggling while Biden is currently attempting to hamstring Trump’s efforts to save our United States dollar, and subsequently our indebted nation by regaining control of our current economic abyss, America has suffered for the past four-years awaiting Biden’s guaranteed departure from office.
Joining “outside” (read: volunteer, unpaid) forces with brilliant, successful entrepreneurs such as Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, these three are talking about creating the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to take axes to reduce and/or eliminate waste รก La Senator Proxmire’s Golden Fleece Award shaming, although with teeth as well as public humiliation.
We’re very close to the reckoning of these plans, and innocent parties are excited. On the other hand, greasy politicians “on the take” are squirming in their oversized leather chairs awaiting their time to exit before their disgrace begins. Of course any public trials will only cement accusations before their prison terms.
There you have it. Senator William Proxmire, long-forgotten crusader for the “little guy” has his true character finally revealed just in time for DOGE and a new, more honest era. I hope he’s watching over Donald Trump, as well as his clean-up crew.
