$1.7 Trillion Federal Spending Bill Larded With Waste; 27 Republicans Voted for It
Aslan Alphan/iStock/Getty Images Plus
Login to Listen
Article audio sponsored by The John Birch Society

Before too long, the national debt will surpass $32 trillion, in part thanks to the latest spending bill that leftist Democrats and go-along-to-get-along Republicans passed.

The latest attack on fiscal sanity: a $1.7 trillion spending bill of more than 4,000 pages that will fund the government for the remainder of fiscal 2023, which ends on September 30.

Virtually no one, of course, read the bill, or fully understood what was in it, least of all the more than two dozen Republicans who voted for it.

Broad Outlines

The bill spends $773 billion on “non-defense discretionary spending,” much of which is unconstitutional welfare money, and $858 billion on defense.

The leftist mainstream media hit the broad outlines of the bill by noting that it spends $45 billion to promote war in Ukraine, which “includes about $19.8 billion to arm and equip Ukraine and European allies, $12.9 billion for economic assistance and $6.2 billion for the Department of Defense,” as The Hill reported.

Also included in the bill are these appropriations: “$47.5 billion for the National Institutes of Health, $9.2 billion for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and $950 million for the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority.”

Hard-left Democratic Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut points to these “victories for the people”:

“I wonder how long it would take the clerk to read this,” GOP Senator Rand Paul said of the 4,155-page bill.

Nancy Pelosi Gets a Building

Riffing on Paul, Rep. Dan Bishop of North Carolina did read the bill and found these items that fortify the public weal:

  • $3 million for bee-friendly highways and $5 million for salmon;
  • $65 million in two programs for Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont;
  • Nancy Pelosi gets a federal building in her name.
  • $3.6 million will build the “Michelle Obama Trail”;
  • $477,000 will pay for “antiracist” training from outfit called the Equity Institute;
  • $3 million goes to the “the LGBTQ+ museum” in New York City;
  • $1.2 million will provide “services for DACA recipients”;
  • $4.1 million will pay for “various career programs” in Fairfax, Virginia, “one of the richest counties” in the country.
  • $200 million for a Gender Equity Fund, whatever that is;
  • $335 million for a forthcoming flu plague;
  • $535 million for the unconstitutional Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Frighteningly, the provides $11.33 billion for the politicized and politically corrupt FBI, and $1.75 billion for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

U.S. attorneys will receive $2.63 billion, “with an emphasis on J6 prosecutions and domestic terrorism cases.”

Despite all that, 27 Republicans, 18 in the Senate and nine in the House, voted for the bill.

“I’ll just cut to the chase,” said GOP Senator Mike Braun of Indiana:

We’re hypocrites.… [Democrats] are unapologetic about it. We claim to be fiscal conservatives and accommodate it year after year. I place more blame on us than I do on them, in the sense that we say we’re against it, but then we go along with it.

Festivus Report

As for outright waste, fraud, and abuse, taxpayers must wait until next December to get an eyeful of what Paul uncovers annually in his Festivus Report.

Two days before Christmas, Paul delivered the 2022 installment, which exposed yet again just what the nation’s bureaucrats and elected representatives think about the American people.

Among the “Waste of 2022” Paul disclosed was:

  • $4.5 billion in China Virus relief for ineligible recipients;
  • $168 million to help illegal aliens avoid deportation;
  • $31.5 million of China Virus relief that went for luxury cars;
  • $28 million on camouflage that won’t work in Afghanistan;
  • $17 million on hotel rooms for illegals that went unused;
  • $3 million for a Gandhi museum;
  • $3 million on to watch hamsters fight while dosed with steroids;
  • $2.5 million on Super Bowl ads to tell Americans to fill out their Census questionnaires;
  • $2.3 million to inject beagle pups with cocaine;
  • $2.1 million to importune Ethiopians to wear shoes;
  • $1.1 million to train mice to binge-drink booze;
  • $689,222 to study parrot romance;
  • $675,000 to study ant intelligence;
  • $200,000 on radio ads to tell motorists to stop for trains;
  • $187,500 to verify that kids love pets;
  • $118,971 to find out if fictional Marvel Comics superhero Thanos can snap his fingers wearing the infinity gauntlet (he can’t).

At this writing, the national debt is over $31 trillion and climbing. The debt per citizen is almost $95,000, while the debt per taxpayer has reached nearly $247,000. Meanwhile, federal tax revenue is about $4.7 trillion but declining.