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While the $1.7 trillion omnibus spending package that the Senate passed Thursday has been heralded by some Democrats and Republicans as a victory, others have begun sounding the alarm over what exactly is included in the 4,155-page bill.
In a series of tweets Thursday, Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) slammed the bill’s inclusion of funding for “woke pet projects.”
“The omnibus bill will funnel MILLIONS of taxpayer dollars to LGBT groups peddling radical gender ideology—many of those [dollars] will go to orgs that target YOUTH,” Roy wrote in one tweet.
Included among the bill’s earmarks are $856,000 for the facilities and equipment at a New York LGBT Center; $105,000 for an LBTQ youth mentoring program at Big Brothers Big Sisters of Greater Pittsburgh; $1.2 million for “centers to support LGBT students” in California’s San Diego Community College District; $500,000 for Long Island Gay and Lesbian Youth, Inc.; and $750,000 for In Our Own Voices, Inc., a New York-based organization that seeks to “strengthen the voices” of LGBT people of color and help them combat “oppression and marginalization.”
The bill also includes extensive funding for climate and equity initiatives, including Hawaii’s Zero Emission Bus Program, Sacramento’s “Neighborhood Equity Initiative,” a “community-driven air quality and environmental justice assessment” at the University of Illinois, and numerous climate and social justice programs at other universities.
Meanwhile, Rep. Dan Bishop (R-N.C.) expressed alarm over the appropriation of $575 million for “family planning/reproductive health” in areas where population growth “threatens biodiversity or endangered species.
