$1.5T spending bill yields Ag Dept. windfall, including funds for hospital management consulting

The Golden Horseshoe is a weekly designation from Just The News intended to highlight egregious examples of wasteful taxpayer spending by the government. The award is named for the horseshoe-shaped toilet seats for military airplanes that cost the Pentagon a whopping $640 each back in the 1980s.

This week's Golden Horseshoe is awarded to the Department of Agriculture (USDA) for tens of millions of dollars in dubious new spending approved under the $1.5 trillion omnibus spending package for everything from combating cogongross to expanding into hospital management consulting. 

Signed into law by President Biden on Tuesday, the massive spending package is riddled with questionable funding, including earmarks, and Just the News found USDA has been allocated millions for new programs which are questionable and possibly duplicative. Once created, such programs may acquire public and bureaucratic constituencies that lock them in place indefinitely, potentially leaving taxpayers on the funding hook far beyond FY2022.

Questionable allocations to USDA under the Consolidated Appropriations Act include:

• $30 million to "establish an Institute for Rural Partnerships," funds that the department will distribute to three "geographically diverse established land-grant universities" to research "the causes and conditions of challenges facing rural areas, and develop community partnerships to address such challenges."
• $5 million to create a new National Farm to School Institute at Shelburne Farms in Vermont to "provide technical and practical assistance to Farm to School programs across the country." It's unclear why a national institute is necessary as the USDA already awards millions in annual grants through its Farm to School Program (FSP), according to its website. 
• $3 million to "provide grants to state departments of agriculture and forestry commissions" to "combat and treat cogongross." As previously reported by JTN, the Infrastructure and Investment Jobs Act included $250 million to remove invasive plants along roads and rails nationwide.
• $1 million to form a Cattle Contracts Library Pilot Program similar to the Swine Contract Library currently maintained by the USDA. 
• $2 million for a Department of Agriculture pilot program to assist "rural hospitals to improve long-term operations and financial health by providing technical assistance through analysis of current hospital management practices." 

The USDA did not respond to a request for comment explaining why these new programs and initiatives are necessary for U.S. taxpayers to fund.