Oklahoma senator's annual 'Wastebook' cites video games

This year's edition of the annual Wastebook from Sen. Tom Coburn, the Republican from Oklahoma, cites federal money for video games as a potential candidate for cutbacks on government funding.

The Wastebook is an annual compendium of what Sen. Coburn believes to be "low-priority and wasteful spending" by the federal government. Wastebook 2013 includes 100 examples of spending that, if excised, could have saved taxpayers nearly $30 billion, according to a press release from Coburn's office.

For one, Sen. Coburn objects to a $150,000 grant that the National Science Foundation gave to Greensboro, N.C.-based Triad Interactive Media for the development of a web-based zombie video game designed to teach math to middle-school students. Wastebook 2013 also cites a two-year grant worth $113,277 from the Institute of Museum and Library Services to the International Center for the History of Electronic Games at the Strong Museum of Play in Rochester, N.Y., because the museum used the grant to preserve the history of video games.

"But our $17 trillion national debt is not play money, so it is time to say 'game over' to playing the taxpayers to pay for the museum's doll and video game fun zones," reads the Wastebook's comment on the IMLS grant. You can read the full Wastebook 2013 here.