Taxpayer dollars went for a dip overseas.
The Biden administration’s State Department approved more than $1.2 million to help upgrade swimming pools in war-torn and poverty-stricken countries overseas, a new analysis found.
During the Biden era, the feds placed at least 14 orders related to swimming pools at embassies or mission residences in seven countries, including Russia — after its brutal invasion of Ukraine began, according to an analysis from Sen. Joni Ernst’s (R-Iowa) office.
“Bureaucrats might think wasting millions is a drop in the bucket, but I am sick and tired of taxpayers getting tossed in the deep end by Washington,” Ernst told The Post.
“I will continue working with the Trump administration to put a stop to the splashy spending of the Biden years.”
Most of the orders appear to be for upgrades to pools rather than installations of brand new ones, despite some of the costs running into the six-figure range.
For example, an over $130,000 order in Zimbabwe upgraded US mission residences in Harare to include pool covers, USASpending.gov, which Ernst’s team used to compile the data, showed.
Meanwhile, Uncle Sam spent some $40,000 in 2022 for a “swimming pool sewer pump replacement” in its Moscow Embassy. Records indicate that the contract was issued almost three months after Russia’s bloody onslaught in Ukraine began.
In Iraq, officials billed taxpayers for a roughly $444,000 upgrade to the indoor dehumidification system in the lavish Baghdad Embassy — a facility that had cost over $750 million.
Overall, the analysis found that there were two upgrades for pools in Haiti, one in Russia, five in Iraq, three in Sudan, one in Zimbabwe, one in Ghana and one in Indonesia.
Some of the contracts flagged have not been fully paid. For example, a $173,000 contract awarded for a “prapatan swimming pool project” has not been paid out, according to USASpending.gov records.
The pool spending report comes as Ernst, who leads the Senate DOGE Caucus, has been probing the vast federal government for waste and bloat. This includes her crusade against taxpayer-funded union time.
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