The 2011 earmark ban was one of the conservative movement’s greatest victories. In a single stroke, it stopped politicians from funding corrupt pet projects like the notorious $400 million “bridge to nowhere” in Alaska or the $3.4 million turtle crossing in Florida.
Swamp elites hated the ban, but the public overwhelmingly supported it. And it stuck… for a while.
But as soon as they could, congressional Democrats and Establishment Republicans brought earmarks back from the grave. They said it would be different this time.
And it is different. It’s worse.
The $460 billion spending bill now making its way through Congress contains 6,000 earmarks totaling more than $12 billion!
And the substance of the earmarks is even worse than their cost.
Consider that more than 200 of the earmarks were inserted into the bill by Sen. Dianne Feinstein … who died last year!
Michigan Senator Debbie Stabenow gave $3 million to … a parade company.
Republicans got into the act, too. South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham got an earmark to build a new trail for the kids at Coastal Carolina University despite the school’s $54 million endowment.
But the Swamp’s Earmark of the Year has to go to the $1 million set aside for a Philadelphia Community Center that hosts weekly “BDSM, kink, and fetish parties” for the local gay and trans community.
Once conservative media reported on the story, the entire Senate raced to pull it from the bill. The City of Brotherly Love will have to wait at least one more year for their federally funded kink parties.
The lesson? Earmarks are as toxic as ever. They twist a lawmaker’s duty to serve the Constitution into greed for taxpayer cash.
With a $34 trillion national debt, spiraling inflation, and crises at home, abroad, and along our southern border, America needs Congress to do its job. Earmarks are corrupt, wasteful, and grow the government at the expense of our freedoms.
There is nothing conservative about them.
The only way to reinstate the earmark ban NEXT YEAR is to elect conservative Senators THIS YEAR.
Senate Conservatives Fund has led the fight against earmarks for over a decade. The victory of SCF’s candidates in the 2010 Tea Party election is why the earmark ban was passed in the first place.
Our 2024 candidates are as committed to ending earmark corruption as our founder, Sen. Jim DeMint, was. This is still our fight.
If it’s yours, too, please support SCF today.
Establishment Republicans use the Democrats’ majority as their excuse for embracing earmarks. So, our only choice is to take that majority away.
SCF is working every day to help nominate and elect pro-Constitution, anti-earmark conservatives to the U.S. Senate.
Thank you for helping us fight against earmark waste, fraud, and abuse!
