On March 6, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene lit into her own party in searing terms as she voted against a package of bills to fund broad swaths of the federal government.
“Republicans have no excuse for having brought this minibus forward,” the Georgia Republican said in a statement that day.
Greene listed a litany of grievances, including the fact the package’s six bills weren’t receiving their own votes, the level of government spending, and the fact that it funds the Department of Justice.
But that doesn’t mean there weren’t things for Greene to celebrate in the bill. And within a week, she was doing just that.
“Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene is proud to announce that she has successfully secured federal funding for seven different projects for Northwest Georgia,” her office said in a March 11 release, saying the congresswoman “meticulously sought out” the projects that received the funding.
That included more than $3.8 million for an airport expansion in Floyd County, $1.5 million for a water treatment facility in Dade County, and several other projects — totaling over $9.3 million. Greene had secured the projects as so-called “earmarks” in the minibus she’d railed against.
Greene’s office touted a local story about the airport funding in an email newsletter to her constituents on Tuesday morning. A spokesman for the congresswoman did not immediately respond to BI’s request for comment.
The congresswoman’s maneuver is known to Democratic critics as “vote no, take the dough.” While Greene herself did secure the funding, one key purpose of earmarks — officially known as congressionally directed spending — is that they give individual lawmakers a stake in government funding legislation and increase the chances that they’ll vote for the bill.
In this case, Greene gets to have it both ways, voting against the broader bill while having something to brag about to her constituents back home.
Altogether, 40 House Republicans have done the same thing this month.
That includes Rep. Lauren Boebert, who voted against more than $20 million of her own earmarks as she faces the fight of her political life in Colorado.
