The Connecticut Museum planned to build its planetarium and the observatory. Boys & Girls clubs in Tennessee and Texas were ready to expand their mentor programs. The College in Georgia wanted to transform part of its library into a business incubator and at least two dozen airports throughout the United States were on their way to the renovation of their terminals and landing railways.
These projects and the scores of others that were in line with federal funding this year evaporated this week when the Republicans gathered around the extension of the Stopgap government to turn off this evening. The measures that have undergone the Chamber of Deputies on Tuesday and are waiting for a vote in the Senate to largely maintain government spending at current levels.
This means that the earmarks do not include the required members of the congress for individual projects in their districts and states. Altogether, projects amounted to about $ 13 billion, according to congress helpers, a bucket decrease in federal expenses.
Their omission is another way that the Congress has given up their wallets – in this case the ability of its members to direct federal money to projects that help their voters – at the beginning of the second term of President Trump.
The legislators on both sides lamented the extinction above the extinction, leaving a number of community improvements and name programs.
“I am sorry that everyone did not get their projects,” said Tom Cole, a Republican Oklahoma, who chair the Committee on the Resources on Tuesday, on Tuesday to his colleagues in the domestic chamber.
“I think most of them are nice,” said Mr. Cole, whose district was proposed to receive $ 107.7 million for $ 15, out of $ 144.7 million he demanded. “I support them.”
Congress Republicans’ decision to enforce expenditure bills without allocation is coming because they are increasingly bringing their institutional power to Trump’s administration.
Earmarks – now known as the “financing of community projects” in the house and “congress -controlled expenditure” in the Senate – are among the brightest ways that individual members of Congress can promote their expenditure power by directing federal agencies to spend money on specific projects in their countries and districts.
These programs, which cover a wide range of spectrum, directly benefit voters and offer lawmakers something specific to quote as evidence that they are getting results for their components.
In the case of accounts approved this year, lawmakers have directed money to community efforts in the Boys & Girls or Big Brothers Big Sisters Mentoring Programs. They directed it towards university research projects, police and standby centers, training programs and community centers. And they asked for federal funds to increase the scores of airports, highway and transit projects.
However, Republicans who have control of Congress did not accept any of these accounts and could not achieve an agreement to finance with Democrats before Friday’s deadline to maintain government money. This let them push on a temporary patch that leaves allocation – and almost any other change to the current expenses.
Democratic legislators pointed out a lack of allocation as one of the many problems they have seen with the expenditure measures against which they are largely opposed.
“These projects are really critical for communities,” said Robert Garcia from California, whose district would receive $ 13.4 million for 14 projects. Republicans, he said, they were short -sighted by failing to finance them.
“Some Republicans really like these projects,” said Mr. Garcia. “I think it is a pity that none of them is for their communities, none of them say anything about these projects.”
The margins have a controversial recent history. For decades, they have been assigned to the accounts to give the legislators motivating a politically hard voice in exchange for being able to direct the federal money back home.
Critics, however, mocked the allocation as frivolous pork or magnets for corruption. A series of scandals at the beginning of 2000 and high-ranking projects, which were considered to be spent by the Boondoggles-Jako, the “Bridge” is nothing in Alaska and the now closed tea museum in Western North Carolina-Pouze strengthened this perception.
When the movement of tea parties swept into the Congress, the legislators stopped in 2011. They returned 10 years later with stricter rules and greater transparency in an attempt to cut the guerrilla Gridck and encourage the members of the congress to indicate the legal regulations.
Significant features are now limited to 1 percent of total disciple expenditure. The legislators must provide a public list of their applications and confirm that neither they nor their immediate family members have any financial interest in any of them.
Projects still have criticism. Many fiscal conservative legislators proudly delay the process of allocating and quoting them as evidence of government waste. Others raise concerns about the possibility of corruption or the extent of covered projects. Even legislators who asked for project financing have deprived this practice.
The representative of Tim Burchett, a Republican who was in the queue to secure $ 7.5 million for his district in East Tennessee, said he supported their omission as a necessary way to use government expenditure.
“I hope it will not hurt anyone,” said Mr. Burchett, who asked for funds for a mentor program, a working group for enforcement of the right to fight the exploitation and projects at universities. “But we have $ 36 trillion for debt and we will have to tighten the belt.”
Representative Don Bacon of Nebraska, a Republican who cost to win $ 10 million to help upgrade the sidewalks at Omaha airport, admitted that some of his voters were likely to be disappointed. However, he was standing to support measures for expenses.
“I’d rather have them,” he said about the brands. “But I wouldn’t have shutdown, right?”
Mr. Bacon secured $ 45.6 million for projects in his district in domestic expenses. But he said he was hoping for more happiness next year.
“We will send again in the next cycle,” he said.
Maya C. Miller, Ilana Marcus and Jeremy Singer-Vine The report contributed.
