GOP Senator to Offer Amendment Removing $9.8 Billion in Omnibus Earmarks

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) speaks at a Press Conference on Pelosi–Schumer Spending Bill in Washington, on Dec. 14, 2022. NTD

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) will offer an amendment to the nearly 5,000-page, $1.7 trillion omnibus spending bill that, if adopted by the lame-duck Senate, would erase more than 4,000 earmarks from the measure.

“There are, let me get the exact numbers, $9.8 billion worth of earmarks. Thousands of individual projects here—both Democrat and Republican,” Johnson told reporters at a Dec. 20 news conference.

“It is interesting to note on the Republican side, we actually have a conference resolution that we don’t support earmarks. Well, we’re supporting over $4 billion worth. Democrats are getting $5.4 billion worth of earmarks,” Johnson said.

“This is the gateway drug to the massive deficit spending, to the mortgaging of our children’s futures. It has to stop, which is why I’m going to offer an amendment to eliminate all those earmarks in this massive omnibus spending bill,” he told reporters.

Earmarks are spending orders submitted by individual senators and representatives that are adopted without going through the regular legislative or competitive bidding processes.

Earmarks were temporarily outlawed by Congress in 2011, largely as a result of a barrage of negative media in the preceding decade, including coverage of the $175 million “Bridge to Nowhere” in Alaska.

Earmarks have a checkered history, often being exposed in recent years as benefitting family members, donors, or friends of the sponsoring senator or representative.

Johnson’s reference to earmarks as the “gateway drug to massive deficit spending” recalled the efforts of former Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) who became known as “Dr. No” because of his sustained opposition to the infamous spending measures.

The massive omnibus measure includes all 12 of the regular appropriation bills, plus other provisions such as additional military aid to Ukraine, other supplemental spending measures, and legislation such as the Electoral Count Act.

The omnibus became necessary because Congress failed to adopt a budget through regular order, which requires separate votes by the Senate and House on each of the 12 appropriations. Failure to enact the omnibus bill would require the federal government to shut down all but essential services, including the military, medical, and law enforcement.

When all of the provisions are included in the total, the omnibus authorizes $1.85 trillion, and requires 6,825 pages of text. No member of the Senate is likely to have had sufficient time to read the entire proposal before voting on it.

The earmarks contained in the omnibus proposal are detailed in the 2,670 “explanatory documents” that tell department and agency employees in the executive branch how to disperse the tax dollars.

A Heritage Foundation analysis found multiple examples of earmarks that would likely draw strong criticism if subjected to regular voting in either the Senate or House. Among them are $1.5 million to encourage people to eat outdoors in Pasadena, California, $1.1 million for a solar array in Kirkland, Washington, $2 million for B360, a Baltimore group that promotes dirt bike culture, $4 million for “soy-enabled” road construction in rural Iowa, and $13 million to expand the airport in Abbeville, Alabama. Abbeville had a population of 2,358 in the 2020 Census.

Johnson was joined during the news conference by Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), Sen. Ron Paul (R-Ky.), and Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.). Johnson said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) agreed to allow the amendment to kill the earmarks to be voted on by the full Senate, which would likely happen on Dec. 22 or Dec. 23.

While 60 votes are required for the Senate to end debate on the omnibus bill, simple majorities can approve amendments and the final passage.

During the news conference, Lee condemned the earmarks and the omnibus, saying, “this is why we are $31 trillion in debt because of stuff like this, making the American people poorer. It’s destabilizing our economy. It’s making it so that the average Utah family now finds life unaffordable, having to shell out an additional $1,000 every month for their basic monthly necessities.”

Lee was also critical of Republicans who are supporting the earmarks and the omnibus proposal.

“This is wrong—it’s got to stop. But it won’t stop until members of Congress, including U.S. senators elected as Republicans and committed to some semblance of fiscal conservatism, refuse to vote for bills that they have not read, that they do not understand, that were cobbled together, and that impoverish the American people.”

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) was one of the small number of senators and representatives who assembled the omnibus during several weeks of closed-door meetings.

McConnell’s cooperation with Schumer and other congressional Democrats is in marked contrast to the actions of aspiring Speaker of the House, Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), the current House Minority Leader.

Conservative Republicans in both chambers wanted Congress to pass a temporary spending measure that would keep the government open until the 118th Congress, which will have a Republican House majority, takes office on Jan. 3.

McCarthy is supporting a vow by a dozen House Republicans led by Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) to oppose any measure that comes to the House next year that is proposed by any Senate Republican who votes for the omnibus.

The Roy group said in a letter that they “are obliged to inform you that if any omnibus passes in the remaining days of this Congress, we will oppose and whip opposition to any legislative priority of those senators who vote for this bill—including the Republican leader.

“We will oppose any rule, any consent request, suspension voice vote, or roll call vote of any such Senate bill, and will otherwise do everything in our power to thwart even the smallest legislative and policy efforts of those senators.”