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Democrats Disgrace 111th Congress

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Democrats want one more juicy, pork-filled spending bill before they leave Congress in the hands of Republicans in January. The Republicans are allowing it to happen. As the Heritage Foundation notes, Democrats failed to increase Department of Defense Spending to adjust for inflation, but found time to drop loads of earmarks into the bill including:

  • $450,000 for the World Food Prize in Des Moines, Iowa;
  • $500,000 for the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate in Boston;
  • $100,000 for YouthCare in Seattle;
  • $550,000 to rehabilitate Beacham Street in Massachusetts;
  • $300,000 to renovate the Josephine Bakhita House in Wilmington, Delaware;
  • $150,000 to renovate the Tibbits Opera House in Michigan;
  • $500,000 for streetscaping in Porter County, Indiana;
  • $200,000 to install solar panels at the Community Food Bank, Inc., in Arizona;
  • $700,000 to reconstruct Norwood Drive in Pennsylvania;
  • $500,000 for Denver Bike Sharing;
  • 100,000 for the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway Transportation Museum in Columbus, Mississippi;
  • $3.5 million to research Formosan Subterranean Termites in New Orleans;
  • $1 million for peanut research in Athens and Tifton, Georgia;
  • $500,000 for oyster safety in Florida;
  • $600,000 for the Lewis and Clark Legacy Trail in North Dakota;
  • $750,000 for the Monterey Bay Sanctuary Scenic Trail Project in California;
  • $125,000 to develop a walking trail in Mississippi;
  • $2 million for an Ice Age National Scenic Trail in Wisconsin;
  • $250,000 for Pigeon Point Lighthouse in California;

I’m sure earmarks like these were not what Americans were voting for in November.

As the 111th Congress comes to a close, I think Americans are sure to remember it as one of the most selfish, lazy, and incompetent in history. In the last days of the Congress, Harry Reid and his cohort in the Senate, and Nancy Pelosi’s House are trying to pass legislation that should have been signed, sealed and delivered months ago, before the election. Instead of completing vital budget legislation and clearing up the confusion surrounding the fate of Bush-era tax rates, Democrats spent a year passing Obamacare, and months campaigning. They tried to pass as little legislation as possible because they knew what they put in the bills would only make their chances worse at the ballot box.

Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) is planning to force Democrats to read the entire 2,000 page omnibus spending bill on the floor, so porkers (both Democrats and Republicans) will have to acknowledge their bad behavior whether they want to or not.

Harry Reid, for his part, plans to hold Senators in session as long as possible in order to get his way. Rather than push some of the bills he wants passed to the next Congress, he will rush them through, without a fair amount of time for them to be read and understood by constituents. It’s disgraceful.

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Richard C. Young

Richard C. Young is the editor of Young's World Money Forecast, and a contributing editor to both Richardcyoung.com and Youngresearch.com.