Three retiring Republican senators—Roy Blunt of Missouri, Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, and Richard Shelby of Alabama—received more than $1.5 billion in earmarks contained in the Omnibus Spending Bill of 2022, according to a new analysis by a nonprofit government watchdog.
The Republican trio’s pork barrel projects were among the 7,506 in the bill, worth a total in excess of $16 billion. Earmarks are federal tax dollars requested by individual senators and representatives to be included in larger spending bills for projects in their home states or districts.
Tea Party majority Republicans in the House banned earmarks in 2011 in the wake of controversy prompted in 2005 by Sen. Tom Coburn’s (R-Okla.) disclosure of the $223 million earmark to build two bridges to an island with 50 residents in Southeast Alaska. Senate Republicans followed suit in 2014. Coburn, a pediatrician who died in 2020, famously became known as “Dr. No” among Senate colleagues as a result of his opposition to earmarks….