Five Stunningly Insulting Things In That 2018 Budget 'Deal'

P. Gardner Goldsmith | March 27, 2018
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President Trump and the GOP majority in the House and Senate just joined their leftist colleagues to insult our intelligence, assault the Constitution, and perpetuate a horde of economic mistakes by passing the 2018 Omnibus Budget.

This $1.3 trillion, deficit and pork-laden monstrosity was 2,232 pages long, and was given to Congress just 1,000 minutes before the vote. For those in Nancy Pelosi’s math-challenged office, members had to read 2.23 pages per minute, non-stop, prior to casting their vaunted votes.

So, what’s in this grab-bag of federal spending and spit-in-your-face-and-call-it-rain idiocy? Here are five of the top bits of unconstitutional insanity…

1. More cash for antiques.

As Rand Paul pointed out when he tried his own marathon reading of it and Tweeted about the experience, there’s an additional $1 million showered on the so-called “Cultural Antiquities Task Force.” What’s that? It’s a “spending priority” created in 2004 by “conservative” George W. Bush and Congress that, as the official government document explains: “annually contributes to the preservation of international cultural heritage.” And, of course, be it U.S. or international “cultural heritage”, there’s no enumerated power in the document that gave Congress and President Trump their offices to allow them to do this.

2. How about a giant helping of pork-barrel bridges?

Indeed, as Eric Boehm reports for Reason, the TIGER, or “Transportation Investments Generating Economic Recovery” program (cute title) that helped build the pedestrian bridge near Florida International University that just collapsed, killing six, is getting three times its former funding thanks to this new budget.

And while many conservatives and libertarians thought that the budget bill didn’t fund Chucky Schumer’s half-a-billion “Gateway Tunnel” tunnel under the Hudson River because it is not specifically mentioned in the budget, in fact, the project does get that money via roundabout spending through Amtrak.

And, to add another spending boondoggle for Mr. Schumer, feds magically showered $132 million more on the wasteful New York based Thousand Islands Bridge project that has spent nearly that much already.

3. Billions for studying things like the sex habits of birds with drug addictions.

Then there’s $6 billion for the National Science Foundation, which, as Rand Paul pointed out, recently wasted $320,000 wondering if Japanese quail were more promiscuous while on cocaine.

4...and actually, 5-7. A bunch of stuff outside the U.S.

As Senator Paul also noted, among the dozens of burdensome and bizarre spending plans, these “international” priorities:

  • $1.371 billion for Contributions to International Organizations
  • $51 million to promote International Family Planning and Reproductive Health (i.e. abortions)
  • $7 million for promoting International Conservation
  • $10 million for UN Environmental Programs

I just realized that I've listed more than five bad boondoggles in this post... How fitting for a federal budget that breaks their fanciful and fake budget “caps” and does things the Constitution never sanctioned.

Doesn’t sound like a "deal" to me.

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