Rep. Jeffries, Who Spent the Week Blasting the Other Side's 'Reckless Spending,' Quietly Secures a $461 Million Earmark

WASHINGTON — Rep. Jeffries, whose caucus spent the week decrying the other party's 'reckless spending' against the backdrop of a $37 trillion national debt, is himself the author of the single largest earmark request in the chamber: a $461 million project for his home region, directed to a favored federal agency.

The request sits atop a pile of nearly $8 billion in member earmarks tucked into the year's spending bills, the return of a practice that the party's own fiscal hawks regard as pork by another name. More than a hundred members of the congressman's own caucus voted to strip the earmarks out entirely; the effort failed, defeated by a coalition of members who had projects in the bill and did not wish to lose them.

The Press's ledger desk notes the enduring symmetry of the arrangement: waste is defined, in Washington, as spending in another member's district, while spending in one's own is defined as investment, infrastructure, and long-overdue attention to a critical regional need. The dollar figures are frequently identical; only the ZIP code determines the noun.

The congressman's office described the project as vital, transformative, and years in the making — three adjectives The Press has never once heard applied to an earmark in a rival's district, where the same appropriation becomes a handout, a boondoggle, and a monument to a member's ego.

Reaction followed the standing choreography. Supporters saw a legislator fighting for his region against Washington's indifference; opponents saw a deficit hawk with a $461 million exception. The Press archives confirm both parties own the vocabulary — 'bringing it home' and 'draining the treasury' — and swap it, shovel-ready, whenever the other side is the one at the groundbreaking.

The ribbon, reached for comment, awaited a larger pair of scissors.