Some courageous House Republicans are fighting to stop the wasteful and corrupt practice of earmarks in Congress. This is the practice that gave us ridiculous projects like the “Bridge to Nowhere” in Alaska, a teapot museum in North Carolina, and a tunnel for turtles in Florida. Leading the charge to ban this wasteful process is Rep. Tom McClintock who is pushing for an earmark ban again in the House Republican Conference on Tuesday, November 29th 2022.
From 2011 to 2021, Congress banned the practice of “earmarking” spending for use on pet projects. Nancy Pelosi led an effort in 2021 to bring back this wasteful practice of using taxpayer dollars on politicians’ pet projects. Career politicians and swamp-connected lobbyists love this practice because it rewards special interests, prevents competitive bidding, and helps splash taxpayer cash in their home districts.
Here are the facts:
- In 30 years of tracking, 116,816 earmarks have cost taxpayers around $411 billion in wasteful spending.
- That averages $12.9 billion and 3,651 earmarks per year!
- Many of these projects are never completed.
- Earmarks can create huge conflicts of interest.
- Earmarks favor entrenched and well-connected politicians, in FY 2022, the 89 members of the House and Senate appropriations committees – only 17% of Congress – got 41% of the earmarks and 29% of the funding!
America can't afford to be plunged further into debt by paying for well-connected politicians to get irresponsible projects placed in their districts. Tell your elected representatives to vote for a BAN on earmarks!