but Can’t Seem to Scrape Up $5 Billion for Border Security
This shouldn’t surprise anyone!
The $14.7 billion in FY 2018 earmarks is more than half of the record $29 billion in FY 2006. At the rate of increase over FY 2017, earmarks could exceed the FY 2006 figure in two years.
Here’s a brief:
……$10,000,000 for high energy cost grants within the Rural Utilities Service (RUS).
……$65,000,000 for Pacific coastal salmon recovery, a 333.3 percent increase from the $15 million last earmarked in FY 2015, and the largest earmark ever for this purpose.
……$57,500,000 for the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) program, which provides grants, training, and technical assistance to local law enforcement.
……$2,674,600,000 for 20 additional F-35 JSF aircraft, including 10 for the Air Force, eight for the Navy, and two for the Marine Corps, a 434.9 percent increase in cost from the $500 million earmarked for JSFs in FY 2017, and the most ever earmarked for the JSF in one year. The money earmarked for the F-35 represents 18.2 percent of the $14.7 billion in earmarks for FY 2018
……$593,000,000 for two earmarks funding the continued upgrade of the M1 Abrams tank to the M1A2SEP variant, an astounding 1,382.5 percent increase over the $40 million earmarked in FY 2016, and the largest earmark ever for this program.
……$544,075,000 for three earmarks funding the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS), the largest amount ever earmarked for the vessel.
……$25,000,000 for alternative energy research, a 66.7 percent increase from the $15 million earmarked in FY 2017.
……$17,000,000 for the Asia Foundation, which is “committed to improving lives across a dynamic and developing Asia.”
There’s a ton of obscene waste, pork, and earmarks they could cut, but instead they pander to special interests and the usual bunch of outstretched hands. When military leaders tell you to stop wasting money on equipment and weapons they don’t need and don’t work, you know it’s gotten out of control.
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