Congressional leadership released a massive $1.85 trillion “omnibus” spending bill early Tuesday. This 4,155-page bill is filled with woke policies to advance the Left’s extreme agenda to remake America using your tax dollars.
It is unprecedented for a lame-duck Congress to jam through an omnibus spending bill after the American people voted out the majority party in the House of Representatives.
However, Senate Republican leadership has worked with outgoing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for one last liberal spending blowout before the conservative majority takes control of the House on Jan. 3.
The omnibus spending bill is loaded with thousands of earmarks, which are line-item funding for specific pet projects directed by members of Congress.
Many of these earmarks would advance the Left’s extreme agenda and fund its institutions using the taxpayer’s money. House Appropriations Chairwoman Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., bragged that the omnibus “fulfills 98% of Democratic member requests in the House, with $5.4 billion for 3,213 Democratic projects.”
The types of woke-waste line items that some Senate Republicans will help fund, unless they change their minds, include these 12 projects:
- $1.2 million for “LGBTQIA+ Pride Centers” and another $1.2 million for “support services for DACA recipients” (aka helping illegal aliens with taxpayer funds) at San Diego Community College.
- $477,000 for the Equity Institute in Rhode Island to indoctrinate teachers with “antiracism virtual labs.”
- $1 million for Zora’s House in Ohio, a “coworking and community space” for “women and gender-expansive people of color.”
- $3 million for the American LGBTQ+ Museum in New York City.
- $3.6 million for a Michelle Obama Trail in Georgia.
- $750,000 for “LGBT and Gender Non-Conforming housing” in Albany, New York.
- $2 million for the “Great Blacks in Wax” museum in Baltimore.
- $856,000 for an “LGBT Center” in New York.
- $750,000 for the “TransLatin@ Coalition” to provide “workforce development programs and supportive services for Transgender and Gender nonconforming and Intersex (TGI) immigrant women in Los Angeles.”
- $2 million for “MLK Labor” in Washington, an affiliate of the AFL-CIO that expelled Seattle police officers from union ranks.
- $956,000 for “The Equity Incubator at the Universities at Shady Grove” in Maryland.
- $791,200 for “equitable energy resilience and EV infrastructure” in Sonoma, California.
These types of woke projects have no place in the federal budget.
House Republicans could have banned the corrupt practice of earmarking. But the GOP agreed to keep the pork money flowing with a 158-52 vote in November.
The earmarks in this omnibus spending bill should be a wake-up call to the dangers of allowing earmarks back into Congress’ appropriations process.
Rather than rubber-stamping these earmarks and the $1.85 trillion omnibus, lawmakers should kick government spending into next year. Then the new Congress can draft responsible bills that reflect the values of all Americans and cut wasteful spending.
This piece originally appeared in The Daily Signal on December 20, 2022
