Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma has picked up the ball where his predecessor, Sen. Tom Coburn, dropped it when he retired. Coburn always kept a close eye on government spending, in all its absurd incarnations. Lankford, likewise, has now published a report titled “Federal Fumbles 2015: 100 Ways the Government Dropped the Ball.”

“Our national debt is careening toward $19 trillion (yes, that is a 19 followed by 12 zeros), and federal regulations are expanding at a record pace,” he writes. “Meanwhile families struggle to get home loans, and small businesses struggle to make ends meet.”

It’s important to consider federal regulations alongside federal spending, he contends.

“The federal government collected $1.234 trillion in individual income taxes in 2013 but cost individuals and businesses more than $2 trillion in federal regulations,” he writes. “In 2014 the federal government published 80 ‘major’ final regulations that were ‘economically significant,’ or regulations that ‘will cost more than $100 million a year.’ And remember, the costs of those regulations are passed on to you, the consumer.”

So the federal fumbles he documents include both bad spending and bad policy.

One example is “Silent Shakespeare.” Last year, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) funded a project in Virginia to produce a silent adaptation of “Hamlet.”

“William Shakespeare was lauded for many things: his meter, his verse, his complicated characters,” Lankford writes. “Generations of families have come together to enjoy productions of Shakespeare’s sonnets and plays by film companies, local theaters and high school drama classes. But was Polonius right in Hamlet when he said ‘Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice’?”

To “recover the fumble,” he writes, Congress should ensure that NEA grants come with better oversight and guidance.

“National grants should fund national priorities,” he writes – and silent Shakespeare isn’t a national priority.

An example of bad policy, enforced through bad regulations, is the USDA’s school nutrition program.

“To improve childhood diets and reduce obesity, USDA developed nutritional standards under the authority of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010,” he explains.

But the rules are complicated, often conflicting and just lack common sense.

“Federally mandated lunch standards actually cause many students to not eat enough at lunch,” he writes. “These government meals also do not take into consideration that dietary needs may differ from student to student. A senior offensive lineman on the football team may have different caloric needs than the freshman trumpet player.”

The bottom line, he says, is “families know best what their children should eat for lunch.”

A more outrageous example is a consultant hired – for $545,000 – by the State Department to help train its personnel in how to tell the truth.

“Does the federal government really need to hire an outside contractor to train federal officials and nominees on how to testify before Congress and tell the truth?” he asks. “Surely not.”

Lankford has a valid point here – and many more in his report.