Rand Paul criticizes taxpayer funds for Hollywood museum

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) on Monday blasted a National Endowment for the Arts grant to help build a movie museum. 

The agency gave $25,000 in taxpayer funds to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to help pay for the planning of what the academy is calling “the world’s leading movie museum.” 

{mosads}The Kentucky Republican targeted the spending in his latest edition of “The Waste Report,” which Paul, who is running for president, uses to spotlight what he believes are examples of unnecessary government spending. 

Paul, in the report, questions why the academy, responsible for putting together the annual Oscars award show, needs government funding when, “in addition to scores of Hollywood brass ponying up donations to the museum, the academy is flush with cash; it makes profits of roughly $50 million on the Oscars alone,” according to the release from his office. 

The museum is scheduled to open in 2017, and Paul notes it will include a space shuttle from “2001: A Space Odyssey,” which he says cost the organization $344,000. 

“While $25,000 might be small in the scope of the federal budget or in Hollywood, it is over half what the average worker makes in a year, and equals the full federal tax liability of almost four average Americans,” Paul adds in his brief.

“So, one must wonder, when cries ring out about what constitutes a fair share of taxes for someone to pay, why are any of those tax dollars going to support a museum that does not need it?”