Free Republic

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) is considering granting free-spending establishment Republicans and Democrats one of the top items on their wish list. Johnson, after delivering crushing defeats to conservatives on government funding, warrantless spying on Americans, and Ukraine aid, is reportedly setting his sights on expanding earmarks.

Seven of the top 10 lawmakers who used earmarks recently are Senate Republicans, according to a report from Open the Books. In March 2021, a split House Republican conference voted to overturn its years-long ban on earmarks. The renewed practice requires Republican lawmakers to write a justification for any earmark they want to sponsor and verify they have no financial stake in the earmark. Those in favor of bringing back earmarks believe it would bring more power to Congress and can serve as a tool to rein in the Biden administration. Some House Republicans who support using earmarks also believe...

On Wednesday’s broadcast of West Virginia MetroNews’ “Talkline with Hoppy Kercheval,” Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) stated that it is difficult to justify his plans to vote for the omnibus spending package given his past concerns about debt and that he is pleased with the over $225 million in earmarks West Virginia gets under the bill. Host Hoppy Kercheval asked, “Congress is scheduled to take action on this omnibus spending bill. It’s a big old bill, 4,155 pages. It’s about a thousand pages longer than the previous year. It totals $1.65 trillion. And from what I read, it would add another...

Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY), who lost her GOP primary in August by nearly 40 points, was granted earmarks worth over $5 million in the $1.7 trillion, 4,155-page omnibus bill. If the bill passes Congress in the next few days, Cheney will have spent $5,031,000 of taxpayers’ funds on pet projects in Wyoming. The specific earmarks are: Natrona County, Casper, Wyoming, for Facilities and Equipment ($1,500,000) City of Gillette, Wyoming, for Senator Mike Enzi Memorial Overpass Replacement Project ($3,000,000) Food Bank of Wyoming for Food Bank of Wyoming Truck Equipment ($531,000) Cheney famously lost her GOP primary to Rep.-elect Harriet Hageman...

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) requested at least 19 earmarks totaling over $60 million in the $1.7 trillion, 4,155-page omnibus bill. If the bill passes both chambers of Congress, Murkowski’s state of Alaska will be granted by Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), on behalf of American taxpayers, $60,852,000 worth of pork for housing and urban development, along with infrastructure. The specifics of the many line items include: Providence Alaska-Permanent Supportive Housing for Providence Alaska Foundation ($7,500,000) Cabin Community Projects for Sitka Homeless Coalition ($1,000,000) Rehabilitation of Bering Sea Women’s Shelter for Bering Sea Women’s Group ($2,000,000) Norton Sound Health Corporation Housing for...

Outgoing Senate Appropriations Committee Vice Chair Richard Shelby (R-AL) slipped $656 million worth of earmarks into the $1.7 trillion omnibus spending bill. Congressional leaders dropped the $1.7 trillion, 4,155-page omnibus spending bill at 1:30 a.m. ET, giving lawmakers little time to digest the implications of the mammoth legislation. While the bill may have many major reforms that are readily apparent, lawmakers also slipped hard-to-find earmarks into the bill. Many lawmakers, such as Shelby, are retiring and face few political repercussions for pushing a bill that contains many special interest carveouts and increases the deficit.

The Center for Renewing America released detais on egregious earmarks in the $1.5 trillion omnibus spending bill, which passed the Senate with bipartisan support: $1,600,000 for “equitable” growth of the shellfish industry in Rhode Island $500,000 for a Diversity and Inclusion program at Worcester State University $475,000 for the Race, Inclusion, and Social Equity Institute at Ohio State University $424,000 to replace sidewalks at a country club in Avon, Connecticut $775,000 for an LGBT center in Los Angeles $500,000 for the Nansen Ski Jump club in New Hampshire $605,000 for a greenhouse in NYC $945,000 a kelp forest survey in...

The $715 billion infrastructure bill that passed the U.S. House of Representatives earlier this month includes a $6,550,000 earmark aimed at stopping people from committing suicide by jumping from the Golden Gate Bridge, which is in Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s congressional district. […] “The Golden Gate Bridge, Highway and Transportation District is in the process of constructing a Suicide Deterrent Net System (SDNS) to deter suicides at the Bridge by placing a physical barrier between a person and the water below,” it says. “The SDNS consists of marine grade stainless steel netting attached to structural steel net supports placed 20 feet...

Russ Vought, former President Donald Trump’s White House budget director president of the Center for Renewing America (CRA), and Tom Jones, American Accountability Foundation (AAF) President, will launch the “Congressional Pork Map” accountability project on Thursday, Breitbart News has learned exclusively. Vought and Jones’ goal is to expose Republican and Democrats’ most “corruptive” earmarks and hold lawmakers accountable for their lobbying for pork in various bills. The AAF and CRA project aims to hold Republicans and Democrats accountable for stuffing legislation with special interest projects. The Congressional Pork Map project serves as an interactive map so that Americans can see...

To point out the elephant sitting next to the 500-pound gorilla in the room, the federal government spends too much money. In spite of the regular verbal abuses levelled at so-called “earmarks,” they are not to blame for this massive problem. In a sense, earmarks, can be considered part of the solution. Why? Because they are transparent.One of the primary catalysts for profligate spending is the near-complete lack of transparency in the annual congressional appropriations process. Rather than budgets with neatly organized line-items detailing where and how taxpayer dollars are spent, most federal spending results from huge pots of money...

With House Republicans having voted by secret ballot last Wednesday to remove a ban on earmarks within their caucus, capitulating to Democrats’ wishes to reintroduce the practice, that leaves the Senate GOP as the last remaining bulwark between American taxpayers and corrupt congressional spending and pet projects. By the looks of it, that last line of defense is planning to cave. The Federalist has obtained the proposed GOP conference rules, which would allow for earmarks, which have been banned since 2011 and are now being pushed under the monikers “member-directed” or “congressionally directed” spending. If senators successfully pass their proposed...

The earmark vote shows that far too many purportedly conservative lawmakers want to partake in the big-government excesses of the Biden era.It appears House Republicans need to become re-acquainted with the late Democratic Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn and humorist Mark Twain. Both men famously commented on the lack of educational value of the second kick of a mule, which aptly describes the actions of the Republican conference in endorsing a return to congressional earmarks.These earmarks—or, as lawmakers now wish to rebrand them, “community project funding”—bred corruption and scandals during their heyday in the 2000s. Just as important, they...

Can lawmakers bring home the bacon without it being pork? It’s a question that’s vexing Republicans as they consider whether to join a Democratic push to revive earmarks, the much-maligned practice where lawmakers direct federal spending to a specific project or institution back home. Examples include a new bridge, community library or university research program. Earmarking was linked to corruption in the 2000s, leading to an outcry and their banishment in both the House and Senate. But many in Congress say the ban has gone too far, ceding the “power of the purse” to party leaders and the executive branch...

Bribe Senator Joe Manchin?Atlantic magazine writer Annie Lowrey doesn't even try to be very subtle about it. The headline of her story on Wednesday flat out makes it clear what she wants, "Give Joe Manchin Whatever He Wants." And if you can't figure out what she is getting at in the title, the subtitle goes into even more detail, "Why shouldn’t Democrats bring back earmarks and curry his favor with a few sky bridges and concert halls?" Lowrey makes the case that Democrats should, essentially, bribe Manchin in order to make him more supportive of legislation being pushed by the...

Senate Republicans voted Thursday to adopt a permanent ban on earmarks, in a move that signals as long as the GOP controls the chamber the practice of pork-barrel spending won’t return. A ban had been adopted every Congress since House Republicans imposed it after taking the majority in that chamber in 2011, but it needed to be renewed every two years. Sen. Ben Sasse said it was time for the GOP to make the ban permanent. “The last thing taxpayers need is for the same politicians who racked up a $22 trillion national debt to go on an earmark binge,”...

As Minnesota leaders debate how much new money to put toward the state’s roads, they’re also fighting about a related issue: who should choose which roads get attention? Ordinarily, the Legislature appropriates money for roads and bridges, and the Minnesota Department of Transportation decides how to spend the money. But bills in the Legislature this year take a different path: they order the MnDOT to do specific road projects. It’s a process called “earmarking,” and it could spark a showdown over road funding between the Republican-controlled Legislature and DFL Gov. Mark Dayton. Behind the feud are bad feelings from some...

Earmarks again are a topic in Congress, and people in this part of Pennsylvania shouldn’t condemn them. Back in the 1970s, when highway construction was booming around the biggest population centers of the Keystone State, places like Altoona, Johnstown, Ebensburg and Bedford were told that once those projects were completed, work would begin on their roadway needs.But as the large-scale projects around Philadelphia, Harrisburg, Pittsburgh and Erie were completed, the promises that had been made to Blair County and other smaller-population areas, didn’t materialize because of alleged money shortages.The message seemed to be: “We’ll get to you sometime, but for...

One week after Donald Trump won the presidency on a promise to “drain the swamp” in Washington, House Republicans will vote on a proposal to bring back earmarks. The vote will take place Wednesday when House Republicans meet to adopt their rules for the next Congress. The House earmark ban dates to 2010 when the GOP won control of the chamber. Now, a trio of Republican lawmakers wants to return to the practice of earmarking, which became synonymous with government waste and pork-barrel spending during the GOP-controlled Congress of the early 2000s. Reps. John Culberson of Texas, Mike Rogers of...

Florida Rep. Tom Rooney wants to bring earmarks back to Washington – sort of – but House Speaker Paul Ryan has put up an obstacle named Donald Trump. The Republican has offered a proposal that would allow lawmakers to designate money for water projects under the Army Corps of Engineers and Bureau of Reclamation. “When I go home to my county commissioners, they say ‘Can you shore up the dike around Lake Okeechobee?’ I’m like, ‘no.’ I can write a letter and hope that they listen to me. Which, over at the Army Corps, they probably look at that letter...

At least not now I wonder if the return of unified Republican government means we’re going to start re-running all the same arguments we had a decade ago. If Valerie Plame comes out of the woodwork I’m really going to be irritated. But we’re talking about earmarks again, if only because House Republicans seem to miss the little buggers an awful lot, and maybe they figured now that they have all the power again, it’s time to go back to shoveling piles of federal money into their districts like they did in the good old days. Good for them, that...