Even Republicans Are All in on Washington’s End-of-Year Spending Spree

The federal government is running annual $1 trillion to $2 trillion budget deficits, which is more than the entire gross domestic product of most nations. But if you believed that Republicans would take a chainsaw to the budget (figuratively) and slash the waste from the federal budget, then to paraphrase the “Oliver Twist” character of Fagin, the miser, “I think you had better think it out again.”

So far, since the midterm elections, the Republicans in Congress seem to be doing just the opposite. The first decision by House Republicans when they learned they had won a slim majority of 222 to 213 was to bring back earmarks. These are bridges to nowhere, peanut subsidies and sports arenas for local professional teams paid for by federal taxpayers.

Some Republican lawmakers offer the excuse that it’s called bringing home the bacon to local constituents. But both parties apparently love to play Santa.

Republicans justify the slices of bacon on grounds that if they don’t carve out earmarks, Democratic President Joe Biden will choose how the money is spent. Why not just spend less money? The late, great Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) used to call earmarks “the gateway drug to trillion-dollar spending bills.” And, boy, was he ever right. – READ MORE