Retiring Jim Inhofe Slips $511 Million into $1.7 Trillion Omnibus

Outgoing Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK), the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has half a billion dollars worth of earmarks in the $1.7 trillion omnibus spending bills.

Inhofe, who is due to retire, has the second highest number of earmarks in the over four-thousand-page bill, only losing to Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL), the vice chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee.

Inhofe, given that he is due to soon leave the Senate, faces little to no political pressure not to stuff the bill with earmarks.

Here are some of the bigger earmarks for Inhofe:

• $114 million for the Air Force for KC-46A 1 Bay Depot Corrosion Control Hangar
• $90 million for the Air Force KC–46A 2–Bay Program Depot Maintenance Hangar
• $86 million for the Army Advance Individual Training Complex Phase 2  in Oklahoma
• $40 million for the Tulsa International Airport (TUL) Air Traffic Control Tower

The omnibus spending bill also includes $45 billion in military and economic aid for Ukraine, which Inhofe has been a vocal advocate for despite Americans’ declining support for entanglement in Ukraine.

“Many of our @NATO allies on the front lines with Russia give more aid to Ukraine pound-for-pound than the U.S. That’s why we need to ramp up industrial capacity to refill our own weapons stocks, sell to allies to refill their own and sustain Ukraine victories,” Inhofe wrote in early November. Inhofe shared an infographic that called to “Destroy Russia Together.”

A Morning Consult poll released in late November found that 48 percent of registered Republican voters want to decrease the provisioning of foreign aid. The survey revealed that 48 percent of Republicans want to decrease involvement in other countries’ affairs.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg warned on Friday that a full-blown “major war” between Russia and the West could possibly break out over Ukraine.