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related: _Tom Cole Master Profile DeLauro Boeing Lockheed Martin Northrop Grumman
donors: Boeing Lockheed Martin Northrop Grumman Raytheon
The Spending Cartel
The House Appropriations Committee operates as a bipartisan spending cartel. Under Cole’s chairmanship and DeLauro’s ranking membership, the committee produces spending bills that reliably increase both defense and non-defense discretionary spending — the topline numbers always go up regardless of which party controls the gavel. The disagreements are about allocation within the total, not about the total itself.
This bipartisan consensus serves the committee’s donor base: defense contractors receive their authorizations (Cole’s constituency), healthcare and education systems receive their funding (DeLauro’s constituency), and both parties’ appropriations members receive PAC contributions from every industry that depends on federal spending.
The Continuing Resolution Problem
Cole has publicly championed returning to “regular order” — passing all 12 individual appropriations bills rather than governing through continuing resolutions (CRs). His preference for regular order is genuine institutional commitment and also strategic self-interest: regular order maximizes the Appropriations Chairman’s power. Under regular order, Cole makes granular funding decisions across 12 bills; under CRs, spending is set on autopilot at previous levels, reducing the chairman’s influence.
The CR dynamic also affects fundraising: when regular order collapses, appropriations members’ leverage over spending decisions decreases, reducing their fundraising advantage. Cole’s defense of regular order is simultaneously good government and good fundraising.
Money
The Appropriations Committee controls $1.7 trillion in annual discretionary spending. Every federal contractor, every grant recipient, every agency whose budget is at stake must engage with appropriations members. The committee’s bipartisan operation ensures that regardless of which party holds the gavel, the spending levels that serve the contractor class continue to rise. The cartel’s output is not partisan — it is structural.
Sources
- House Appropriations Committee: Chairman Tom Cole (Tier 1)
- OpenSecrets: Tom Cole campaign finance summary (Tier 1)
- Ballotpedia: Tom Cole (Tier 3)
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