President Joe Biden has signed the omnibus spending law, which funds the federal government for another six-plus months. But it also includes plenty of provisions tucked in by lawmakers in the wee hours before passage in the House and Senate that benefits lawmakers' states and districts and not necessarily U.S. taxpayers as a whole.
To be sure, these goodies are a small part of the bill. The $1.5 trillion measure provides about $13.6 billion in emergency aid for Ukraine as it fights off Russia's invasion. That includes $4 billion to help displaced refugees and $6.5 billion for military assistance.The 2,741-page bill also allocates about $782 billion for military spending, and an additional $125 billion goes to the Department of Veterans Affairs.
But the law does a lot more than fund federal agencies for the remainder of the 2022 fiscal year ending Sept. 30. Included in the bill are more than 4,000 earmarks that benefit members' local communities or pet projects. They account for about $9.7 billion of the $1.5 trillion bill, take up 367 pages, and mostly benefit Democrats, though some Republicans didn't hesitate to cash in as well.Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer"wins a prize for grift," as a Wall Street Journal editorial board put it, with 142 earmarks totaling $258 million. Lead negotiators Sen.
Earmarks haven't been in vogue since 2011, when they were banned. The last appropriations bill to include earmarks, in 2010, capped out at more than 9,000.
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