The Department of Me: Senators Earmark $636M for Universities They Attended
https://openthebooks.substack.com/p/the-department-of-me-senators-earmark
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Most universities dream of wealthy alumni who will send massive donations to their alma maters. The kind who contribute millions of dollars year after year, funding libraries, laboratories and more.
A select few universities have found such a wealthy, if unwitting, donor for 2026: the U.S. taxpayer, by way of pork-hungry senators.
Twenty-four senators requested $636 million of earmarks for the universities they attended as students. That’s more than 20% of the $3.7 billion of earmarks requested for universities in the 2026 federal budget, according to Open the Books’ review of congressional disclosures.
The list includes 13 Democrats and 11 Republicans. However, it was Republicans who requested $470 million (74%) of the cash.
The average alma mater earmark request is worth $4.9 million this year. Earmark requests for universities that are not affiliated with a senator were worth only $3 million on average.
Not every earmark request will be signed into law. Congress has been discreetly adding and removing earmarks from the proposed budget for weeks, presumably in an effort to appease members who were hesitant to advance the budget out of committee.
Regardless, senators on both sides of the aisle are trying their best to gift federal funds to their old schools.
Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY)
University of Kentucky, University of Louisville
7 earmark requests worth $164.9 million
Sen. Jim Justice (R-WV)
Marshall University
9 earmark requests worth $57.5 million
Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA)
Washington State University
2 earmark requests worth $50.9 million
Sen. John Boozman (R-AR)
University of Arkansas-Fayetteville
2 earmark requests worth $4.3 million
Conclusion
The government will shut down on Jan. 31 if Congress cannot agree on a 2026 federal budget. Unfortunately for taxpayers, alma mater earmarks appear to be one of the few items that lawmakers from both parties support.
Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC) introduced an amendment on Jan. 22 to strike all earmarks from the Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies bill, calling them “partisan pet projects” that are “outside the core mission” of the bill.
He was unsuccessful. Seventy-six House Republicans joined 215 Democrats in voting to keep the earmarks intact. Another eight Republicans and one Democrat abstained. The results were unsurprising, given that 31 House members secured $131 million for their own alma maters last year.
Each one gets an “F” for fiscal sanity.
Xi’s Top-Rank Purge Strengthens Chinese Leader, Weakens PLA
Second-most-powerful military leader’s downfall comes as new US defense strategy eschews war with China
https://www.asiasentinel.com/p/xi-top-rank-purge-strengthens-chinese-leader-weakens-pla
Excerpt:
The Saturday sacking of China’s second-most-powerful military leader, General Zhang Youxia, and another top Chinese general, Liu Zhenli, has awakened speculation that the two had sought to pull off a coup against Chinese President Xi Jinping and comes at the expense of a weakened and unsettled People’s Liberation Army (PLA), possibly narrowing the prospect of an invasion of the recalcitrant island of Taiwan.
It is the latest in a series of purges of Chinese military officers since 2023 that has wracked the Chinese military, with at least 70 arrested over a corruption scandal in the elite rocket force. On June 29, 2024, Asia Sentinel reported that two former defense ministers, General Li Shangfu and General Wei Fenghe, were prosecuted and expelled from the Chinese Communist Party.
At 3 PM Beijing time on January 24, China’s Ministry of Defense announced that Zhang and Liu were being investigated for “serious violations of party discipline and the law.” Although scores of senior Chinese officers have been taken down since 2023, Zhang is the most powerful military chief to be purged since the 1971 falling out between Mao Zedong and Marshal Lin Biao, a defense minister and heir to Mao. The charges are not only about corruption but also disloyalty to Xi, according to an editorial in the PLA Daily published around 11 PM Beijing on January 24. The editorial said, “The resolute investigation of Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli is a major victory of the struggle against corruption of the party and military.”
“As senior officers of the party and military, Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli seriously betrayed the trust of the party center and the Central Military Commission, seriously trampled upon their responsibilities in the Central Military Commission, severely affected the party’s control of the military, damaged the party on political and corruption issues,” the editorial disclosed.
.....“Seems Xi has removed all hindrances to remaining emperor, but at the expense of unity and normalcy,” Willy Lam, a senior fellow of the Jamestown Foundation, a US think tank, told Asia Sentinel. “He can only depend on rising stars who know how to flatter him, but whose military efficacy is dubious. Most generals with experience have been removed. Taiwan is safe for the moment.”
“Xi sees Zhang Youxia as a real threat. He must have gotten enough support to get rid of [him]. Xi will have a greater mandate and confidence facing Trump,” said a source who asked not to be named.
.....More arrests are likely, agreed David Tsai, a US-based China watcher, in a January 24 tweet: “The arrests were carried out like a shocking military mutiny. Next, a large number of lieutenant generals, major generals, and even division-level officers will be arrested as well.”
Just a year ago, the CMC had six members including General He Weidong, Admiral Miao Hua, Zhang and Liu. The current purge means only Xi and General Zhang Shengmin areleft, leaving a significantly thinned and unsettled high command. Zhang Shengmin oversees anti-corruption investigations within the PLA, so he was probably Xi’s tool to take down Zhang Youxia and Liu.
.....Dennis Wilder, a professor at Georgetown University, tweeted on January 24, “This is definitely the CCP equivalent of the Nazi ‘night of the long knives.’ Zhang’s real crime. Becoming all powerful in the military after destroying the He Weidong network…. Xi wants his fourth term, and nothing will stand in his way.”
.....Trump’s National Defense Strategy
Hours before the Chinese Defense Ministry announced the investigation of Liu and Zhang, the US Department of War released its National Defense Strategy, which doesn’t even mention Taiwan. The report said the US will “deter China in the Indo-Pacific through strength, not confrontation.” President Trump, it said, “seeks a stable peace, fair trade, and respectful relations with China, and he has shown that he is willing to engage President Xi Jinping directly to achieve those goals. But President Trump has also shown how important it is to negotiate from a position of strength.”
The de-escalation also demonstrates the Trump administration’s worldview of the planet as divided into distinct spheres of interest dominated by Russia, China and the United States, each of which allows the other to live and let live. The US will support “strategic stability with Beijing as well as deconfliction and de-escalation, more generally. But we will also be clear-eyed and realistic about the speed, scale, and quality of China’s historic military buildup. Our goal in doing so is not to dominate China; nor is it to strangle or humiliate them. Rather, our goal is simple: To prevent anyone, including China, from being able to dominate us or our allies,” it added.