Exclusive: Sen. Eric Schmitt Says Biden’s Budget Is the ‘Wokest Budget in History’

Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO) responded to President Joe Biden’s latest budget proposal, telling Breitbart News it’s the “wokest budget in history” as some of the federal tax dollars would be used to push leftist ideas “completely out of step with the needs of the American people.”

“It’s the wokest budget in history, and it’s a joke,” the newly minted senator told Breitbart News on Friday morning regarding what some of the federal departments under Biden want to spend taxpayer dollars on.

“When you dig down, and you drill down into the details, the billions and billions of dollars being spent on this climate alarmist agenda, or DEI [diversity, equity, and inclusion] or all this virtue signaling, again, is, is not in step with where the American people are at, and they want to see responsible governing, and … see some fiscal responsibility in the budgeting like they have to do at home. And that’s not represented in this budget,” Schmitt explained.

The Missouri senator was referring to the federal departments and agencies wanting to “advance racial equity,” find “strategies to promote racial and socioeconomic diversity in” schools, and advance “gender equality and equality around the world.”

Here are some examples from Biden’s budget:

• Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) proposed budget includes “nearly $1.8 billion across numerous programs in support of environmental justice efforts,” to be used to “support creating good-paying jobs, cleaning up pollution … advancing racial equity, and securing environmental justice.” It also “includes $91 million for technical assistance to support capacity building for communities to advance equity and justice.”
• Department of the Treasury’s proposed budget would be to “support Treasury’s Climate Hub and establish a climate-related technical support center to conduct assessments of climate-related risks across Government programs.” The agency also wants to create programs to “expand engagement with historically underrepresented and underserved groups to advance equity across all Treasury programs.”
• Department of Education’s proposed budget includes “$100 million for a grant program to support voluntary efforts by communities interested in developing and implementing strategies to promote racial and socioeconomic diversity in their schools.”
• Department of State, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and other international programs’ proposed budgets include a section titled “Advances Gender Equity and Equality Around the World,” in addition to another section titled “Sharpens America’s Tools of Statecraft,” to expand on “significant investments to advance diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility across its people, policies, processes, programs, and partnerships.”

Schmitt said the budget is “out of touch” and questioned how any of the “virtue signaling” helps a farmer, a single mom working two jobs, or Missouri. He also pointed out that there is a “crisis at the border,” but Biden is only adding a few hundred more border agents while, at the same time, wanting to fund 87,000 new IRS agents and over a thousand lawyers at the Department of Justice.

“Institutions have been weaponized against the American people. You get the Department of Justice going after parents, going after conservatives,” he explained. “These woke and weaponized agencies have now been given a blank check, and it’s, again, it’s not what the American people want. It’s not what they should expect.”

Jacob Bliss is a reporter for Breitbart News. Write to him at jbliss@breitbart.com or follow him on Twitter @JacobMBliss.