CV NEWS FEED // Congress on Tuesday revealed a $1.85 trillion omnibus spending bill that is over 4,000 pages in length, eliciting widespread backlash against an attempt to push numerous controversial measures through in the massive bill before new members of Congress elected by the American people in the midterm elections take their seats in January.
“This 4,155-page bill is filled with woke policies to advance the Left’s extreme agenda to remake America using your tax dollars,” wrote Matthew Dickerson for the Daily Signal. “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.”
Added Dickerson: “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 Heritage Foundation in a series of Tweets detailed a number of the “woke priorities” contained in the bill, including near-countless sums of money for radical race- and gender-related ideological projects such as:
- $1.2 million for “LGBTQIA+ Pride Centers”
- $477k for the Equity Institute in RI 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.
- $750k for the for “LGBT and Gender Non-Conforming housing” in Albany, New York.
- $2 million for the “Great Blacks in Wax” museum in Baltimore.
- $856k for the “LGBT Center” in New York.
- $750k for the “TransLatin@ Coalition” to provide “workforce development programs and supportive services for Transgender and Gender nonconforming and Intersex immigrant women in Los Angeles.
“The above list is far from exhaustive, and each of the proposed expenditures represents “your taxpayer dollars set aside for special interests or projects … funding the left’s extreme agenda using YOUR money,” Heritage explained.
Dan Hart of the Washington Stand reported many other such earmarks in the bill, and noted that Democrats left “lawmakers little time to review the text and vote on it before a looming government shutdown on Friday at midnight.”
“Experts point out that the omnibus bill’s earmarks include over $11 million in LGBT-themed projects, and GOP lawmakers say the special interest spending could be avoided if the omnibus was delayed until January when the newly elected Republican-led House would be in power,” Hart reported:
On Monday, 13 House Republicans led by Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) released a letter voicing strong opposition to [the] bill, saying that it fails to curb excess spending while inflation is still high and fails to “secure and defend our borders.” House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) expressed support for the letter in a tweet Tuesday. A large contingent of GOP lawmakers have argued that passing a short-term spending bill to delay the omnibus until January will allow a House Republican majority to set spending priorities.
Hart went on to cite Connor Semelsberger, director of Federal Affairs for Life and Human Dignity at Family Research Council, who noted that the current omnibus bill is a reminder of how right the Tea Party was to ban “earmarks from annual government spending bills,” before they came back “with a vengeance.”
“The omnibus appropriations bill totaling 4,155 pages (over 6,000 pages when you include all relevant report language) is filled with partisan earmarks that do nothing more than support a radical social agenda,” said Semelsberger:
This year’s partisan earmarks prove just why they were banned in the first place. They serve nothing else then to line the country’s special interest groups with hard working American’s tax dollars.”