Congress is poised to protect puppies and tax dollars | Opinion
National polls show that more than two-thirds of taxpayers — Democrats and Republicans alike — prefer lawmakers who prioritize cutting $20 billion in wasteful government spending on animal experiments. With the 118th Congress seated, it’s clear they made their voices heard. Most of our Waste Warriors — like Tennessee Reps. Steve Cohen (D-TN) and Diana Harshbarger (R-TN) — returned to Congress, so the future looks bright for animals locked in government labs and dim for bureaucrats in white coats who torture puppies and other animals with our tax dollars.
As a ferociously nonpartisan, single-issue government watchdog, we rally 3 million grassroots liberty lovers and animal lovers — and unite lawmakers ranging from the Freedom Caucus to "The Squad" — to expose and end taxpayer-funded animal experiments.
Over the last two years, the White Coat Waste Project has made historic strides, including completely ending all of the Department of Veterans Affairs’ painful and unnecessary dog testing, cutting the Food and Drug Administration’s cruel monkey business by nearly half, shutting down a record number of government kitten labs and stopping plans for five wasteful and inhumane National Institutes of Health dog experiments .
The new Congress has plenty to do, but there are already commonsense WCW-backed bipartisan proposals queued up that can slash more government waste and save more animals.
We’re prioritizing our work with Harshbarger, Cohen and others to end the government’s painful experiments on dogs and cats. We’re working to pass Violet’s Law to retire and release animals who survive experiments in federal labs. We’ve joined forces with U.S. Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) and other lawmakers to cut FDA red tape and end the mandate that forces drugmakers to abuse puppies in slow, expensive and misleading tests. We’re continuing our efforts with Harshbarger and others to stop taxpayer dollars from flowing to animal labs in Russia and China. And we’re backing an important bill from U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), and its bipartisan House version, to defund dangerous gain-of-function experiments on animals, which involve supercharging viruses to make them deadlier and more contagious to humans.
These are all much-needed efforts with strong bipartisan support on Capitol Hill and among taxpayers on Main Street.
Recent WCW investigations have revealed that Uncle Sam is still wasting countless taxpayer dollars breeding hundreds of puppies to be “severe bleeders” for use in deadly experiments, getting monkeys stoned on marijuana edibles, forcing hamsters to fight in videotaped matches and paying a Kremlin-linked Russian lab to maim and kill cats in spinal cord experiments.
A growing majority of taxpayers oppose Uncle Sam’s multi-billion-dollar annual spending spree on animal labs. The historic victories we’ve scored over the past two years with the support of Democratic and Republican lawmakers in Tennessee and beyond underscore how this issue transcends the partisan divide and that to end taxpayer-funded animal experimentation, we must first end wasteful government spending.
Our message to the new Congress is clear: Stop the money. Stop the madness!
Justin Goodman is the senior vice president of advocacy and public policy at the White Coat Waste Project, a nonpartisan government watchdog group.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Opinion: Congress is poised to protect puppies and tax dollars
