As you skimp, Washington spends trillions and says: Merry Christmas, ya filthy animals

Nicole Russell
J. Scott Applewhite/AP

Updated Friday afternoon to reflect House passage of the spending bill.

Can’t afford as many Christmas gifts for your kids as you’d like? Just spend like Congress!

The House on Friday approved a historic $1.7 trillion (that’s twelve zeros) spending bill, with little regard for where the money comes from. The Senate already voted on the bill, so a whole lot of politicians are getting some “pork” — that’s political lingo for “extra” — but you and your family won’t see a dime.

Don’t believe me? I’d tell you to take a look, but the spending bill is almost 4,000 pages. Not only did a handful of Republicans hardly say a word against it — so much for fiscal restraint — a bunch of them, including our own Sen John Cornyn voted for it. He says the bill provides much-needed funds for troops, the border, and our national defense — these things are vital, of course, and shouldn’t be short-changed, but what about everything else?

To Cornyn’s credit, he did call out the “dysfunctional process” Democrats engaged in “behind closed doors,” and said this was “not what responsible governing looks like.”

Still, Congress rushed this expensive, lengthy bill and threatening a government shutdown if it didn’t pass. Sounds like your transparent representatives at work, no? Whatever happened to “We the people?” Now, we don’t even get a chance to see the bill, much less understand or approve everything that’s costing the American taxpayer trillions of dollars.

In this bill particularly, it’s obvious our government is dedicated to way too much spending on things that seem unnecessary. Even the stuff that is important seems exorbitant. From raises for the FBI, the National Institutes for Health and members of the IRS, to chunks of money for Ukraine, museums, and bee-friendly highways, it reads like a Christmas wish list from every fiscally irresponsible person in the country.

Here’s a handful of expensive things in the trillion dollar bill:

  • $200 million for the Gender Equity and Equality Action Fund, a Biden initiative

  • $45 billion for Ukraine to help defend itself against Russia

  • $38 billion for Americans suffering as a result of natural disasters

  • $2.6 billion for attorneys prosecuting the Jan. 6 offenders

  • $7.5 million for studying “the domestic radicalization phenomenon”

  • $65 million for Pacific coastal salmon recovery

  • $65.7 million is for international fisheries commissions

  • $3 million for bee-friendly highways

  • $3 million for an LGBTQ museum in New York

  • $3.6 million for a Michelle Obama Trail and a “Ukrainian Independence Park”

  • $410 million towards border security for Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, Tunisia, and Oman

Thankfully, not all Texas politicians support this massive spending bill: Rep. Chip Roy led a one-man rampage against it, gathering allies along the way.

“The American people did not elect us — any of us — to continue the status quo in Washington,” Roy wrote in a letter to Republicans in the Senate, which a handful of House members and members-elect signed. “They didn’t elect us to borrow and spend more money we do not have as interest rates skyrocket in response to government spending fueled inflation.”

Roy is right but it doesn’t matter: he’s outnumbered by Democrats who’d rather spend money that isn’t theirs on projects that get them re-elected. So this Christmas, when there’s a little less under the tree due to inflation and you’re bracing for a tax increase next year to cover this massive deficit, you just need to mutter, “Merry Christmas, ya filthy animals.”

We’ll all know you’re talking about the thievery in Washington, not the McCallisters’ house from “Home Alone.”

Advertisement