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Wednesday, June 19, 2013 | 12:26 p.m.

Jamie Dupree's Washington Insider

Posted: 12:46 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 15, 2012

A call to cut non-defense military spending 

By Jamie Dupree

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) is out with a new report claiming that the Pentagon routinely spends billions each year on programs that have nothing to do with military readiness, arguing that at a time of budget troubles, there's no reason not to cut out what isn't needed.

As I detailed on my Twitter feed (@jamiedupree), the Coburn report details a host of items that may make the average American pound the dashboard in frustration, wondering whether the spending of the federal government can ever be reined in:

* Money from the military went to fund studies about slang used on Twitter and how it could be used to determine where that Twitter user was from is.gd/MaqkOV

* Twelve grants worth $6 million over two years went to research on the science of story telling http://t.co/clvdChIe

* The Navy spent $450,000 to observe the social interactions between a military robot and babies

* The Air Force spent $681,387 on a grant for research that showed a man brandishing a gun looked more powerful than a man without a weapon http://t.co/0JXYqYuJ

You can read Coburn's report - titled, the "Department of Everything" at http://is.gd/9CEiDB

Jamie Dupree

About Jamie Dupree

Jamie Dupree is the Radio News Director of the Washington Bureau of the Cox Media Group and writes the Washington Insider blog.

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