Grateful Dead in pork report

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Updated: August 4, 2011 4:20PM

A new report slams $11.5 billion worth of what it calls wasteful government spending in 2010, including more than a half million dollars to digitize Grateful Dead itemes.

Sen. Tom Coburn’s Wastebook 2010 highlights, cites $615,000 in federal funds to digitize photographs, T-shirts and concert tickets belonging to the Grateful Dead. The money went to the University of California at Santa Cruz, the band’s chosen spot for an archive that is supposed to be free to the public.

“Congress continues to find new and extravagant ways to waste tax dollars,” said the Oklahoma Republican.

Also in the report: $700,000 for a study on cow gas; $200,000 to study “ambiguous” comments by politicians; $79,000 to throw a party at Brookfield Zoo for suburban flood victims; and $440,000 for a west suburban Yorkville office for former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert.