Any thoughts on the sketchiest examples of the congressionally directed spending given this is probably going to be the one that gets passed?
The most surprising thing to me here is the fact that MTG’s $6mn of requests somehow survived her retirement. You’d think the appropriators would’ve taken that back
What’s craziest to me is that they’re still funding this after the massive medicaid fraud in Minnesota. This is literally a Somali focused nonprofit. Wouldn’t be surprised if Ilhan is somehow personally benefitting from this.
Approps doesn’t “take back” money once the district is promised.
Also, the Whitfield County sewer money isn’t for MTG per se, it’s because one of the County GOP Commissioners is sleeping with one of her senior staffmembers.
Ditto.
Also, unless the member actually takes a strong personal interest in a project, it’s mostly the LD/Chiefs who guard these numbers. My guess is her LD spent her final months in 2025 making sure the subcommittee clerks didn’t claw it back. And the clerks have an incentive to not be too harsh because there’s a good chance the staff will stick around even after the member leaves and you have to continue working with them then.
@thespeaker @GOPLD are both more or less correct, but realistically, nobody would re-open a conferenced bill just to move $6 million around. The appropriations staff who worked on this likely spent most of their Christmas/New Year holidays hammering out this thing. Also Thune/Johnson just want to get this out to avoid having to deal with another CR issue.
I heard from someone in the cloakroom that Approps staff were told to focus only on Locations as opposed to specific recipients. As long as the state-by-state funding isn’t too lopsided, they’ll let Ilhan have her Somali nonprofit money if it means they don’t have to deal with another CR in February. Basically paying her (any several other members) off to ensure we can get this done as soon as possible.
What’s most wild to me is McConnell getting $70M for the University of Louisville. Kinda sucks for University of KY that they were only McConnell’s Alma Mater for law school and not his undergrad.
Don’t feel too bad for them. They still got $35mn. This is McConnell’s last appropriations cycle and he’s just trying to go out with a bang.
I’m more curious if either (or both schools) are gonna name a building after him and whether that is considered an illegal quid pro quo.
My main takeaway from those projects is “drinkable water for me, but not for thee.” Insane levels of hypocrisy.
Careful. Your racism is showing.
I dunno. I think he has a pretty good point when you consider they literally say “We are a Somali-led organization“ on their webpage.
Also this
I feel like people aren’t giving enough attention to the Robot Bomb Dogs funding in NC. This raises so many questions.
Huh. Youweren’t kidding.
Looks like you’re wrong.
Klobuchar getting $5mil for “Generating Renewable Energy from Food Waste” tells me everything I need to know about how much these climate alarmists actually care about the issue. This is one of the least economical and least efficient ways to actually generate electricity and reduce emissions. All these Senators are just LARPing and have completely lost the plot.