Waste of the Day: Earmarks Return from the Dead

Topline: Like a bad dream, thousands of Congressional earmarks that were thrown out during last year’s appropriation process will potentially receive federal funding next year. The fiscal year 2026 spending bills currently being debated in Congress contain 7,737 earmarks worth $13.8 billion — down from at least $30 billion that was originally requested.

History and examples of earmarks

Key facts: Earmarks — often dubbed the “currency of corruption” or “pork barrel spending” — send billions of dollars of federal funds to local projects around the country each year. Critics argue that Congress members use them to essentially buy votes from special interest groups or to fund initiatives that local communities are unwilling to pay for themselves.

Congress members requested $31 billion of earmarks for fiscal year 2025, but none were signed into law because Congress failed to pass a traditional federal budget. The government is currently operating under a continuing resolution that keeps funding levels almost identical to 2024, meaning no new local projects were allowed to receive money. 

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle vowed to request the same earmarks again in the 2026 budget, and many of them have done exactly that. 

Maryland Senators Chris Van Hollen and Angela Alsobrooks requested $428,000 to build a “Horses Helping People Center” for “equine-assisted therapy” and $811,000 for a “mobile music lab bus.” Both items had already been tossed out of the 2025 budget.

Maine Sen. Angus King requested 241 earmarks worth $936 million, and Maine Rep. Jared Golden wants $1 million for a survey counting how many lobsters are in the Gulf of Maine.

Republicans and Democrats alike…

Rep. Brian Mast (R-Fla.) asked for an astonishing $725 million to help restore the Florida Everglades. Congress has not passed an earmark worth more than $500 million since at least 2010, and Mast’s request was among those removed during debate on the Hill last month.

Overall, the House requested 5,415 earmarks worth $23.4 billion, including $14.1 billion requested by Republicans. Thankfully for taxpayers, the House spending bills have been whittled down to contain only $8 billion to fund 5,028 earmarks.

It’s unclear how many earmarks the Senate requested. An online chart of member requests included nearly 14,000 earmarks, but many were listed twice. No dollar total was provided, and there was no option to download the chart as a spreadsheet.

OpenTheBooks asked the Senate Appropriations Committee to provide a spreadsheet of its earmark requests, but the Committee declined to do so. The online chart of member requests was even down for at least a few days mid-August.

It is required to be displayed, and a spokesperson said the lack of display was an error. It was repaired the next day.

Earmarks removed, then restored

Regardless, many earmarks were removed as the spending bills moved through Committee, and the Senate package now contains only 2,709 earmarks worth $5.8 billion.  

Search all federal, state and local salaries and vendor spending with the world’s largest government spending database at OpenTheBooks.com. 

Summary: This year has seen a renewed interest in slashing wasteful government spending, but it will be difficult to achieve that goal until Congress stops spending billions of dollars on earmarks.

The #WasteOfTheDay is brought to you by the forensic auditors at OpenTheBooks.com.

This article was originally published by RealClearInvestigations and made available via RealClearWire.

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