Meanwhile, over in the Senate things are even more grotesque.

Republicans wanted more defense spending – on top of the near $800 billion we already give each year to the Pentagon. America spends more on defense than China, Russia, India, Great Britain, Germany, and Japan COMBINED.

Democrats wanted tens of billions more for domestic programs.

So they compromised and both parties got their wish list of projects funded while taxpayers (remember us?) get collectively stuck with another increase in our credit card bill that already has 13 zeroes.

How’d this happen?

Look no further than the Senate Appropriations Committee, whose chairman Pat Leahy (VT) linked arms with ranking Republican Richard Shelby (AL) to cut the deal. These two have served collectively in Congress for what seems 100 years. (Lord, how we need term limits!) They are long-time Senate buddies. Politico reports their wives hang out together – they are BFFs.

Shelby is retiring and he gets an estimated $100 million in pork for Alabama. Leahy is boasting that this bill has the “largest increase in spending in four years.”

You’d think that the government were running a $2 trillion SURPLUS, not a deficit that big.

Our Senate sources on Capitol Hill tell us that Republicans went along with the deal because this is a retirement present for Shelby. If only the Senators had passed a collection basket in the Senate cloak room to give the retiring Alabama senator a gold watch, think how much money would have been saved.

Instead, taxpayers get bilked for the most expensive going-away present in world history.

The White House gushed: “The bipartisan funding bill is proof that both parties can come together to deliver for the American people…” blah, blah, blah.

And that’s why they call it “the swamp.”