The Pigs Are Back in DC, With $9.7 Billion in Pork – Opinion

Pigs are coming back.

Earmarking is back in the federal budget after an 11 year hiatus. Earmarks are included in the budget of 1.5 trillion dollars. Most of the pork is blue. The majority of Republicans didn’t pork the budget deficit for cronies and donors, and to buy votes, but some Rs bellied up to the feed-trough. There are approximately $9.7 trillion in earmarks.

Earmarks were removed 11 years ago when the Republicans retook Congress, but like a relapsed alcoholic, Congress is again binging–spending money we don’t have.

Maybe we shouldn’t complain – it’s part of the fight to “make things right,”– right? It is 2,741 pages long, with only 4,000 earmarks to people and shellfish.

Yes, Shellfish.

Sheldon Whitehouse got $1.6 million earmarked for “development of equitable growth of shellfish aquaculture in Rhode Island.” Maybe Senator Whitehouse is feeling guilty about his membership in an all-white beach club, but why push equity for shellfish? Do shellfish count as a Rhode Island voting bloc? Are Rhode Island’s shellfish considered crustaceans-of-color? Does there exist an affirmative plan for ensuring that all oysters are consumed fairly? It is possible to make $1.6 million.

Liz Warren was awarded $500,000 by Worcester State University in order to promote diversity and inclusion among STEM students interested in studying climate change. The grant fulfills two criteria on the woke checklist. No word if There is any carve-out specifically for Warren’s tribe.

Jamaal Bowman of New York’s 16^th district requested a lot of earmarks, including $496,000 for ‘capital improvements” to a YMCA pool. Bowman claimed that it was capital improvements. However, I am unsure what fixing up the Bronx’s pool is to do with federal government. Yet the earmark text talks about the fact that 64 percent of black kids can’t swim. I don’t think that teaching kids to swim is a “capital improvement” to a pool. And if it’s to keep kids from drowning, that seems like a whole lot of money for floaties.

Chuck Schumer wins the grifter medal. In 140 earmarks, there’s a total of $258,000 million for the good folks of New York. It’s a coincidence that it’s an election year.

Houston, a blue city located in a red state. It’s getting a museum dedicate to the life and memory of Mahatma Gandhi. I don’t know what connection he has with Houston or Texas, but three million U.S. dollars are going to be used to build a memorial to Gandhi. I’m guessing but I don’t think that Gandhi’s well-documented racists beliefs–that blacks were inferior to Europeans and Indians–won’t be placed on center stage. That part of Gandhi’s legacy is often forgotten by the left.

Together, Senator Patrick Leahy and Sen. Richard Shelby from Alabama secured $800 million to support their respective states.

And Alaska doesn’t get a bridge to nowhere this year, but it gets millions in pork, with $10 million to tear down a hotel in the city of Fairbanks. You might be asking – what does a hotel in Fairbanks have to do with the federal government? Nothing. Next question.

Sure, there’s several billion of US dollars going to Ukraine to effectively close its border from Putin’s invaders, but Trump spent years fighting Pelosi to get under $4 billion for a wall at our southern border. Priorities.

This deficit totals $30 trillion. Biden claims that the deficit is $30 trillion because the federal government spends more. So next year, maybe that budget should be $30 trillion, and we’ll magically be out of debt. That’s how it works, right?

You want more depressing news? You can find more items here and here.