By Ray Cardello for March 25, 2024, Season 25 / Post 29

The Senate passed an emergency appropriations bill on Friday night to avoid a government shutdown. This $1.2 trillion appropriations minibus includes $825 billion for the U.S. Department of Defense, $62 billion for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and funds several key agencies and programs pertaining to financial services, labor, health and human services, and education. Nothing is ever as it appears in Washington. This bill is not about keeping the government open, but about an opportunity to have a D.C. Pork fest. Congress got very creative as they ensured their vote with millions for pet projects for their constituents. None of these projects has anything to do with keeping the government going, just keeping the money we don’t have flowing.

Joe Biden’s comments about the bill:

The bipartisan funding bill I just signed keeps the government open, invests in the American people, and strengthens our economy and national security. This agreement represents a compromise, which means neither side got everything it wanted. But it rejects extreme cuts from House Republicans and expands access to child care, invests in cancer research, funds mental health and substance use care, advances American leadership abroad, and provides resources to secure the border that my Administration successfully fought to include. That’s good news for the American people.

The lines in this statement are Biden’s take on child care, cancer research, leadership abroad, and the laugher securing the border. Gaslighting is a 24/7 job for Joe. It is so easy to be free with American taxpayer money when the country is $34 Trillion in debt. But then again, Joe’s kids have a habit of not paying their “fair share,” or any share for that matter.

Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) may be an elderly lady, but she is still a fan of kayaking. She ensured an amendment was attached to the bill to secure $2.5 Million for a kayak facility in the small town of Franklin, NH. You might ask what a kayak park has to do with keeping the lights on in D.C. It doesn’t, but every Senator and Congressperson knows the opportunity before them when they can add to a huge appropriations bill with little chance of people noticing. Shaheen got busted on this one, as it hit FOX News all weekend as an example of the wasteful spending by Congress.

And that only scratches the surface. The partial budget deal—which contains six of the 12 appropriations bills that make up the discretionary portion of the annual federal budget—is overflowing with earmarks to fund lawmakers’ pet projects. All told, there are more than 6,000 earmarks in the bill, costing taxpayers more than $12.7 billion, according to Sen. Mike Lee (R–Utah), who has urged Republicans to vote against the package.

Plenty of others make no sense for the public to be funding at all. Like a $3.5 million earmark secured by Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D–Mich.) for The Parade Company, which runs Detroit’s annual Thanksgiving Day parade. as well as a $2.7 million line item to help build a bike park in White Sulfur Springs, West Virginia, a town with a population of less than 2,300 people.

With few exceptions, like Lee, the two Scotts (Rick and Tim), and Kennedy, who understand the game and would love to see pork projects disappear. This will never happen in the swamp we know as D.C.