80% More Spending
by Brian Riedl
Issue 128 - March 25, 2009

The omnibus bill increases spending by an incredible eight percent -- or actually an historic 80 percent if you count all the stimulus funding.

It also includes 9,287 earmarks, including :

• $1,049,000 to combat Mormon Crickets in Utah;
• $332,500 to build a school sidewalk in Franklin, Texas;
• $225,000 for Everybody Wins!;
• $200,000 for a tattoo removal program in Mission Hills, California;
• $190,000 for the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody, Wyoming;
• $237,500 for theater renovation in Merced, California; and
• $75,000 for the Totally Teen Zone in Albany, Georgia.

Counting previous appropriations bill, the 2009 total comes to 11,914 earmarks at a cost of $28.9 billion. This represents the second most earmarks—and the second highest cost—in American history.

If a recession and record $1.4 trillion budget deficit aren’t enough to break up Congress’ business-as-usual culture of spending and pork, then what will it take? And how will Congress ever make the truly difficult decisions on Social Security and Medicare?

My full study on the Budget appear at: Omnibus Spending Bill: Huge Spending and 9,000 Earmarks Represents Business-as-Usual can be found at http://www.heritage.org/Research/Budget/wm2318.cfm

It also includes a link to about 100 sample earmarks from the omnibus bill.

Brian Riedl is Grover M. Hermann Fellow for Federal Budgetary Affairs at The Heritage Foundation