The one ad I remember mocked our government for "wasting" money studying "gas emissions" from cows. Of course, the question of agricultural methane production is quite important from the standpoint of total greenhouse gas emissions, and there has been interesting research towards reducing methane emissions while maintaining production. It's also a negligible part of the budget, like almost all scientific spending. I was 13 years old and thinking, how stupid, is this guy saying he's going to go through picking and choosing these tiny little line items in the budget based on how they sound?
From a larger perspective, it shows that even sophisticated businessmen fall victim to the usual fallacies about government spending, thinking that there's a lot more waste that can be easily trimmed than there is, that you can cut a few unpopular programs and make a reduction in taxes or balance the budget, or that a national government should be run like a household, putting off spending when revenue is low and cranking it up while it is high.
