The Golden Fleece Award (1975–1988) was a tongue-in-cheek award given to public officials in the United States for squandering public money. Its name is sardonically taken from the actual Order of the Golden Fleece, a prestigious chivalric award created in the late 15th century. It is a play on the transitive verb fleece, or charging excessively for goods or services.

United States Senator William Proxmire, Democrat from Wisconsin, began to issue the Golden Fleece Award in 1975 in monthly press releases. In 1988, The Washington Post referred to the award as "the most successful public relations device in politics today". Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia referred to the award as being "as much a part of the Senate as quorum calls and filibusters".

William Proxmire, a United States Senator who represented the Democratic Party from Wisconsin, issued the award monthly from 1975 until 1988. He issued 168 Golden Fleece Awards. Though some members of the United States House of Representatives asked Proxmire's permission to continue the award, he declined, saying he might continue to issue them as a private citizen. Other organizations patterned their own "Golden Fleece Awards" after Proxmire's. Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonpartisan federal budget watchdog organization, gave Proxmire their lifetime achievement award in 1999, and revived the Golden Fleece Award in 2000. Proxmire served as an honorary chairman of the organization.

One "winner", behavioral scientist Ronald Hutchinson, sued Proxmire for $8 million in damages in 1976. Proxmire claimed that his statements about Hutchinson's research were protected by the Speech or Debate Clause of the United States Constitution. The Supreme Court of the United States ruled, in Hutchinson v. Proxmire, that the protection of speech and debate of lawmakers in the Constitution did not shield Proxmire from liability for defamatory statements made outside of formal congressional proceedings. The case was later settled out of court. Proxmire continued to present the award following the suit.

In 2012 several organizations created the Golden Goose Award, celebrating federally funded scientists doing basic research with benefits to society or humanity.

In his 2014 book Creativity, Inc., Pixar President Ed Catmull wrote of the "chilling effect on research" the Golden Fleece Award exerted. He argued that when thousands of research projects are funded, some have measurable, positive impacts and others don't. It is not possible to predict what the results of every research project will be or whether they will have value. Catmull further argued that failure in research is essential and that fear of failure would distort the way researchers choose projects, which would ultimately impede progress.

Winners of the Golden Fleece Award included governmental organizations like the United States Department of Defense, Bureau of Land Management, and National Park Service; research projects have been particularly well represented. Many of the projects have been characterized as junk science that "lack substance" and were "marginal or useless scientific research".

The National Science Foundation (NSF) won the first Golden Fleece Award for spending $84,000 on a study on love. Proxmire reasoned that: