The 2022 government funding bill passed last week marked the first budget since the return of pork-barrel politics, and the $1.5 trillion spending bill was loaded up with more than $9.7 billion dedicated to 5,000 pet projects across the country. Earmarks have been a part of the federal budget for centuries but became more popular in the 1990s when a bipartisan group of lawmakers from the appropriations committees simplified the process to obtain them. They became a hotly contested campaign issue after horror stories of waste and corruption from lawmakers of both parties. Some were thrown in jail for taking bribes in exchange for earmarks. Republicans banned the practice in the House in 2011 at the height of the Tea Party movement and did the same in the under President Obama shortly after. The 2,700 page omnibus spending bill passed 68-31 in the Senate last week, hours ahead of a deadline that would have triggered a government shutdown. Lawmakers who didn't vote for it, all of them Republicans, complained about the 'bloated' bill and 'jammed-through' process, where only a handful of Republicans had any say. Some noted that it could drive four-decade-high even higher.
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