Rush Holt, and several of his radical colleagues, continually creates obnoxious appropriations that raid the taxpayer purse for special benefits to be handed out to a few connected recipients. Rush Holt firmly stood with partisan allies to narrowly pass many expansive, and expensive bills this year. Several of these mountainous appropriation bills, emanating from the petulant 111th Congress, which became public law, contain curious allotments of taxpayer dollars.
We need to scrutinize all congressional expenditures. Rush Holt's tenure is marked by misappropriations and maladministration of taxpayer funds. At a time when austerity is sorely needed in Congress, Mr. Holt continues to recklessly disburse public treasure on ridiculous programs. He must believe that the federal government can simply spend money on any conceivable project. This blatant display of contempt for our trust, and misconstruction of public power and budgetary discretion, deserves outright denunciation.
H.R. 3288, a monstrous appropriation bill, Rush Holt voted for spending $124 million on Seat Belt Performance Grants, $139 million for Alcohol-Impaired Driving Countermeasures Incentive Grant Program, $4 million for the city and county of Honolulu to operate a ferry boat service demonstration, $80 million to restore Pacific salmon populations, $10 million for prisoner reentry research, and $300 thousand for a program to support student and parent mock elections.
In H.R. 2997, another wasteful display of extravagance filled with excessive spending, Rush Holt voted for $1 million to fund a food animal residue avoidance database program, $80 million for breastfeeding peer counselors, and $216 million for the Center for Tobacco Products. In the same bloated bill, Mr. Holt voted to derive $578 million from prescription drug user fees and $57 million from medical device user fees to pay for all these ridiculous programs.
In H.R. 2918, a legislative branch appropriation bill, Rush Holt voted to spend $25 million for salaries and expenses for house leadership offices, $20 thousand for the house family room, $200 thousand for digitizing culturally significant and historic materials for the Durham Museum in Omaha, Nebraska – which has nothing to do with the legislative branch - $191 million for salaries for compensation and expenses of house officers and employees, and $276 million in contributions for health, retirement, Social Security, and other benefits. Federal salaries and benefits should be cut by at least 10% for those not defending this nation.
In H.R. 1105, an omnibus appropriation bill passed by the grabbing 111th Congress, Rush Holt voted to spend $100 million for boll weevil eradication programs, $469 thousand for the design and construction of an agriculture pest facility in the State of Hawaii, and $80 million for salmon fisheries.
This list of wasteful spending is a very small sample of what was actually spent by Congress, when factoring out salaries and benefits, represents about $1 billion. That is $10 billion over a decade that could be better spent elsewhere, say, securing our borders, servicing our national debt, or letting taxpayers keep it. The taxpayers of New Jersey's 12th congressional district deserve better representation. Rush Holt has squandered taxpayer money on a multitude of programs that the federal government should not be funding. These programs should be under the purview of state governments, with local resources and labor. Time after time, Rush Holt votes with his partisan colleagues. They are forcing their expansionist will with slim majorities, recklessly spending our public treasure on pet projects for special favorites. These practices are unfair, fiscally unsound, not a duty of the federal head.
Every dollar counts. One million here, and another million there, soon it amounts to billions, which could be better spent paying off our national debt, securing our nation, and defending our common interests, not reckless concoctions to end all ills. The federal government is drifting further and further away from its primary objectives. It is being distracted by too many acquired duties that have nothing to do with any enumerated power in the U.S. Constitution. How many priorities can there be? Our national debt and common defense are the primary objectives for the federal government. We need to rein in extravagant spending and discretionary authority. We can start by voting Rush Holt out of office in November, ending his reckless spending endeavor.
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