Raising Pork
We in Iowa are proud to say we are the nation’s largest producers of pork.
But this week, Congress is giving us a run for our money…and in this case, it *is* our money…our tax dollars.
The supposedly COVID-related spending bill has a number of decidedly non-COVID expenditures in it, including:
$10 million for gender programs in Pakistan, plus another $15 million for democracy programs in that country
Funds for a resource study of the Springfield, Illinois race riot. Lest you think this is related to the unrest in our nation’s cities this past summer…this race riot was in 1908, 112 years ago.
$40 million to support operation of the Kennedy Center in Washington. You’ll recall they got $25 million earlier this year in another supposedly COVID-related bill. Oh, and the Kennedy Center is closed at present.
And there’s more…$86 million in assistance to Cambodia, $130 million to Nepal, $135 million to Burma, a whopping $453 million to Ukraine, and a staggering $700 million to Sudan.
That’s by my count $1.5 billion to places not named Iowa, Minnesota, and South Dakota.
And since we’re spending billions…how about another billion so the Smithsonian can create two new museums: one for Women’s History, and one called the American Latino Museum. You know me, I love history and museums…but as part of COVID relief?
Shows you how seriously broken Washington is when we have to accept that level of spending, just to get our citizens a $600 relief check. Maybe if the Trump presidency is ending, it should end with a bang and a shiny wrapped veto of this lump of coal making its way to the president’s desk.
