Skip to main content

Earmarks: Return of the Swamp Creatures

1. Congress earmarked 7,509 projects for $16,012,272,565 in taxpayer cost in the Consolidated Appropriations Act 2023 (H.R. 2617) signed by President Joe Biden on December 29, 2022. 

 2. Senate Republicans Go Hog Wild For Earmarks. Seven of the top ten Members of Congress who earmarked the most were Senate Republicans and the top three earmarked $1.656 billion.

OTB_Earmarks_Chart2

3. In fact, Congressional Republicans out-earmarked their Democratic colleagues in 21 states including Texas, Florida, Missouri, Oklahoma, Maine, and South Carolina.

4. Overall, Democrats earmarked $9.1 billion, Republicans $6.4 billion and a bipartisan group of legislators earmarked an additional $476 million. 

5. The Wheel Of Earmark Fortune included $1 million for the Macadamia Nut Health Intuitive; $2 million for the National Great Blacks In Wax Museum; $3 million to turn Pittsburgh into Hollywood; nearly $4 million for seven buses in Wauwatosa; $5 million to the Ozark Empire Fairgrounds; and $6 million to institutions where their spouses work!

6. Despite new rules prohibiting self-dealing, retiring U.S. Senators earmarked $10 million for institutions to host their archives. Then, at least three of those top earmarking senators sent millions of dollars more on more earmarks to those same institutions (that are already paid to host their archives).

7. Roads, bridges, streets, avenues, and highways rendered only $1.6 billion in earmarks – resulting in only $1 in every $10 earmark dollars. Furthermore, many of the “infrastructure” projects touted by Republicans were phase II or phase III projects. Phase I was funded locally. 

8. Local projects of merit should be funded locally. With earmarks, federal taxpayers paid for $1 million splash pad in Center Line, MI; $2.5 million for landscaping the road medians in La Mirada, CA; $3.6 million for phase II of the Michael Obama trail in Atlanta, GA; $4 million to renovate a theatre in Dallas, TX; and $7 million create a brand new National Korean Museum in Los Angeles, CA.

9. Rich institutions frequently received earmarks. Examples include the Ivy League’s Columbia University ($3 million) with a $13.3 billion endowment; the Field Museum of Chicago ($3.5 million) with assets of $600 million and CEO pay of $1.1 million; and the New York Botanical Gardens whose CEO was paid $1.4 million last year. 

10. Banned for a decade, House Republicans took a secret vote to join Democrats to bring back earmarks. There were 158 Republicans who embraced “the currency of corruption in Congress” – earmarks as a spending tool.  

https://www.openthebooks.com/earmarks-return-of-the-swamp-creatures--openthebooks-oversight-report/

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Fauci Files Reveal Pfizer Helped Biden Rig 2020 Election

 Pfizer secretly colluded with Joe Biden's team to help him rig the 2020 election against Trump, according to new Fauci documents. In his new book, "On Call," Fauci admits that Albert Bourla, the CEO of Pfizer, called him the night after Biden was declared the winner of the election, to inform him of Pfizer's "Game-changing results" from the rigged mRNA trial. "On November 7, after the absentee ballots were counted, Joe Biden was declared the winner of the presidential election. It was the very next night that Albert Bourla, Pfizer's CEO, called me away from my neighbors' fire pit to inform me about the game-changing results from the Pfizer mRNA vaccine trial. I finally thought we had truly turned a corner in defeating this terrible disease." Today reports: In another interesting tidbit, Fauci discusses Trump's FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn declaring that he would not go along with the Trump Administration's plan to roll out the vac...
Post a Comment
Read more

Republicans Withdraw $1 Billion From BlackRock Due To Its ESG Policies

  Multiple U.S. states governed by Republicans are withdrawing state funds from BlackRock's management, as they disapprove of the ESG investment policies of the world's top asset manager, the Financial Times reports. In recent weeks, Louisiana, South Carolina, Utah, and Arkansas have announced they would divest funds from... For months now, Republican states have said they would not do business anymore with asset managers who have ESG-aligned investment policies, which, the states say, show that those financial firms are boycotting the oil and gas industry. Texas is leading the campaign against this movement The Lone Star State published a list of financial firms that could be banned from doing business with Texas, its state pension funds, and local governments. https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Republicans-Withdraw-1-Billion-From-BlackRock-Due-To-Its-ESG-Policies.html
Post a Comment
Read more

The Biden-Harris White House Has An Iranian Spy Leaking U.S. Intelligence In It

 The question is, how did classified intelligence from the United States, showing Israeli military movements that suggest broader action against Iran, get to Tehran? The answer raises uncomfortable questions for the Biden-Harris White House, which has opposed Israel every step of the way in responding to Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran. Defying Biden got Israel the entire leadership of Hezbollah and Hamas, with the ultimate threat still looming: Iran and its nuclear program. Operations against Iran are being assessed also because Iran has started firing ballistic missiles into Israel, targeting civilian centers across the country. If Israel is close to launching a broader offensive against Iran, leaking U.S. intelligence would be a way to both try and deter Israel and give more warning to Iran. In 2012, similar allegations were made against the Obama administration when U.S. intelligence leaks showed that Israel was working towards using "Azerbaijan as a base of operations in the event...
Post a Comment
Read more