Schumer allocates $2M for Bronx Hip Hop Museum amidst high congressional earmarking.

Record Number of Earmarks Approved by Congress

Get ready for some shocking news! Members of Congress from both parties are about to approve a record number of earmarks. These are tax-funded spending projects in their districts or states that are typically buried in massive omnibus spending bills. One such project is a $2 million award by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) to build the Universal Hip Hop Museum in the Bronx, New York.

The museum, which is under construction, celebrates and preserves the history of local and global Hip Hop music and culture to inspire, empower, and promote understanding. It provides a space for audiences, artists, and technology to converge, creating unparalleled educational and entertainment experiences around the Hip Hop culture of the past, present, and future.

But wait, there’s more! The Hip Hop museum earmark is just one of more than 7,000 earmarks requested by individual senators and representatives in both political parties. These earmarks are highlighted in the recently released “2023 Congressional Pig Book,” compiled by Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW), a Washington-based nonprofit that researches and exposes wasteful government spending.

What’s in the Pig Book?

• The 2023 earmarks were approved by the 117th Congress in December 2022 as part of the $1.7 trillion Omnibus Appropriations bill.
• Democrats controlled both chambers of Congress, as well as the White House, in 2022.
• This year’s release exposes 7,396 earmarks, an increase of 43.9 percent from the 5,138 in Fiscal Year (FY) 2022, at a cost of $26.1 billion, an increase of 38.1 percent from the $18.9 billion in earmarks in FY 2022.
• The $26.1 billion earmarked in FY 2023 is the third highest total since CAGW began tracking earmarks in 1991, behind the $29 billion in FY 2006 and $27.3 billion in FY 2005. Legislators are now well on their way to breaking the all-time record.

Earmarks became controversial in the first decade of the 21st century, thanks to public exposure of projects like “The Bridge to Nowhere” that proposed to provide $223 million in 2004 to build a bridge connecting the Alaskan mainland to the sparsely populated Gravina Island. Two members of Congress—former Rep. Chaka Fattah (D-Pa.) in 2017 and former Rep. Randy Cunningham (R-Calif.) in 2006—served prison terms in recent years following their convictions in scandals linked to earmarks.

But public opposition, led by Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.)—known among congressional colleagues as “Dr. No” for his opposition to earmarks—prompted a congressional ban. Congress brought earmarks back in 2021, however, with bipartisan support, though with reforms designed to ensure greater transparency and accountability and rebranded as “Community Project Funding.”

Even with the reforms, however, longtime earmark critics like CAGW President Tom Schatz says the fundamental problem with the practice remains, using federal tax dollars to support special interests projects, especially those backed by members of the Senate and House appropriations committees and members of the party leadership in both chambers of Congress.