The other one I’m hearing from Leftists is that we were funding the cleaning up of Soviet era labs. I was unaware that biowarfare materials have a longer half-life than low-level nuclear waste, for them to still be an issue 30+ years in.
It was a program started during the Bush years. The idea was to 1) “clean up the labs” and 2) employ the scientists. There was this scare that Soviet era scientists who had worked with WMD would have to look for employment elsewhere, and terrorist states with lots of money would happily employ them.
However, I don’t think anyone thought this program would run on for ever. Big mistake!