An earmark sending $375,000 to a Massachusetts dance festival launched in 1933 as “a kind of early gay utopia” is one of 862 earmarks valued at $2.4 billion included in the measure approved earlier this month by Congress and signed into law by President Donald Trump to end the record-breaking government shutdown.

Sponsored by Massachusetts Democratic Senators Elizabeth Warren and Edward Markey, the earmark “is for K-12 students in the Berkshires to visit Jacob’s Pillow and learn about Biology, Math and Spanish through ‘choreography, kinesthetic intelligence, and critical and imaginative thinking,’” according to Open the Books, an Illinois-based non-profit government watchdog.

Earmarks are spending provisions inserted in unrelated legislation by individual senators and representatives without a vote on its merits. For many years, earmarks were sources of corruption as members used them to send tax dollars to family members, former staffers, business partners, campaign contributors, special interest groups, and others.

But thanks mainly to the efforts of former Senator Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), who exposed the costly, earmark-funded “Bridge to Nowhere” in Alaska in the early 2000s, Congress abandoned the practice in 2011. Coburn, who was known among his Senate colleagues as “Dr. No,” famously described earmarks as “the gateway drug to ‘Congressional Spending Addiction.” John Hart, who was then Coburn’s communications director, is now president of Open the Books.

The temptation to bring earmarks back proved too strong, however, and in 2022, majorities of both political parties in the Senate and House voted to restore earmarks, rechristened as “congressionally directed spending” and with certain reforms advocates claimed would assure no corruption.

The November 12 shutdown-ending measure only reopened the government at 2025 spending levels. Congress now has until Jan. 30, 2026, to approve a full budget for the year and avoid another costly shutdown. Three of the 12 major appropriation bills have been approved, and the remaining nine include “2,381 Senate earmarks worth another $4.7 billion and 4,408 House earmarks worth $6 billion, for a total of $10.7 billion more taxpayer dollars being considered for pet projects, according to Open the Books.

The Warren-Markey dance studio earmark supports a dance festival started by Ted Shawn and the Dance Men, according to the studio’s website. “The tall and burly Shawn and his athletic dancers were intent on challenging the image of men in dance; they forged a new, boldly muscular style while also raising their own food and constructing buildings still in use today at the Pillow,” the website explains.

The Massachusetts Democrats are not unique in using tax dollars to support controversial art projects. Senator Jack Reed (D-R.I.) is behind a $100,000 earmark to support the Mixed Magic Theatre in Pawtucket, Rhode Island.

“The theatre, a self-proclaimed ‘strong proponent of diversity, equity, and inclusion,’ is perhaps best known for its play Moby Dick: Then and Now, which replaces the white whale in the original novel with cocaine. Other plays include The Spirit Warrior’s Dream,” according to Open the Books. “Set in a future where America has shrunk into a single city because of climate change, the play features a protagonist who ‘believes that the America of the past is a failed idea.’ The play’s author, Ricardo Pitts-Wiley, explained, ‘I thought I was writing fiction, but now, this s**t is really happening!’” Democrats are not alone in earmarking. Rep. Randy Fine (R-Fla.), together with co-sponsors Maryland Democratic senators Chris Van Hollen and Angela Alsobrooks, pushed three earmarks worth a total of $1.5 million to support horse-assisted therapy.

“The Senate, to its credit, did manage to remove thousands of earmarks from members’ original requests. Sen. Angus King (I-ME) asked for 241 earmarks worth $936 million, which would have been the largest request from a single Senator since at least 2021 — and likely in all of U.S. history. Only 88 of them made it into the final appropriations bills,” Open the Books reported.

“Other senators had eye-popping requests that were also cut down. It remains unclear just how many because the Senate Appropriations Committee refused to provide members’ original earmark requests in machine-readable format, despite multiple requests from Open the Books,” the watchdog said.