Sen. Tina Smith is a Democrat from Minnesota. The opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author. Read more opinion on CNN.

(CNN) In the city of Moorhead, Minnesota -- just across the border from Fargo, North Dakota -- two busy rail lines cross 11th Street. With around 80 trains passing through every day, cars, and pedestrians struggle to share the space; the crossing causes traffic gridlocks, delays ambulances and fire trucks, hinders the economic viability of the downtown area, and threatens the safety of everyone who uses it.

So, the city applied for a grant through the Trump administration's Better Utilizing Investments to Leverage Development (BUILD) program to build two new underpasses along 11th Street. This project , which had already lined up complementary state and local funding, would have improved the flow of traffic, encouraged economic growth, and saved not just money (thanks to the elimination of delays), but lives.

In the process, it became clear how political partisanship and patronage play a big role in preventing resources from reaching communities that are desperately in need.

Indeed, while the Trump administration awarded $900 million in BUILD grants in the 2019 fiscal year, Minnesota didn't receive a single dime of funding.

The city of Paducah, Kentucky, on the other hand, was awarded $10.4 million for riverfront improvements, including an "excursion pier." Perhaps the Department of Transportation made a legitimate judgment that this was a matter of greater importance than Minnesota's -- after all, I'm sure the Paducah tourism industry is glad that riverboats will be able to dock there overnight.

But perhaps there's something else going on here.

Politico reports that, "In her first 14 months as Transportation secretary, Secretary Chao met with officials from Kentucky, which her husband, Mitch McConnell, represents in the Senate, vastly more often than those from any other state." Indeed, one out of every four meetings she took with local officials from any state between January 2017 and March 2018 was with her husband's constituents. I work very hard to deliver for Minnesota, but I draw the line at marrying the Secretary of Transportation.

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Meanwhile, American Public Media reports that, in the lead-up to the 2018 midterm elections, Secretary Chao "traveled to a vulnerable incumbent's state at least three times" to trumpet the awarding of BUILD funding. Each of these incumbents was a Republican.

It's happening again in 2019. Quick, what do these states have in common: Arizona, Colorado, Iowa, Kentucky, Maine, and North Carolina? Each one is represented by a Republican Senator facing a competitive race in 2020. And, lo and behold, each one received multiple BUILD grants in this round of funding. In all, more than one-quarter of BUILD funding -- a total of more than $239 million -- was funneled to these six states alone.

The use of taxpayer funding to -- as Cornell University professor Douglas Kriner put it to APM -- "[r]eward your allies and punish your enemies" isn't new. For example, before I came to the Senate, Republicans were accusing the Obama administration of doing the same thing.

But that doesn't make it right. No matter which party they belong to, Americans want and expect government leaders to act in the best interests of the American people, not in those leaders' own selfish partisan interests.

That's why over the last century and half, crucial reforms were enacted to prevent that kind of behavior. The Pendleton Act of 1883 ended the so-called "spoils system" where government positions were routinely awarded based on partisan loyalty instead of merit. The Hatch Act of 1939 prohibited executive branch employees from using their taxpayer-funded office to engage in partisan politics. And when Richard Nixon used the office of the presidency for personal political gain-- attempting to use the CIA to shut down the Watergate investigation -- it led to formal impeachment hearings before he resigned.

And, of course, that's why the House moved to impeach Donald Trump for attempting to use the power of his office to pressure the president of Ukraine to launch investigations that would benefit him politically.

Minnesotans know it's wrong for a President of any party to put his own personal interests ahead of the public good. And now my constituents have reason to be concerned that the Trump administration's desire to return to the "spoils system" may be directly and unfairly affecting their economic security.

It's not just transportation. Agriculture Committee Ranking Member Debbie Stabenow recently released a report highlighting disconcerting irregularities in the Trump administration's distribution of taxpayer-funded farm aid.

The need for this assistance was created by the Trump administration's own erratic trade policies. And now, the administration's solution to this self-inflicted crisis appears to be designed to pick winners and losers. "Payment rates," the report finds, "have not been distributed equitably between regions, counties, and even next-door neighbors, and have failed to benefit the farmers who have been hit the hardest."

The report details several concerning trends. "Despite small, medium, and beginning farms being more vulnerable during tumultuous times, USDA has done nothing to target assistance to these farmers," the report reads. Meanwhile, according to an AP article mentioned in the report , the family-owned farms of the billionaire Republican governor of West Virginia received the maximum payment under the administration's assistance program.

But while there are many questionable examples, one broad trend sticks out: A vastly disproportionate share of the funding is going to red states. Of the dozens of states receiving funding, the five states receiving the highest per-acre payment rates were all in the South, with the highest being Georgia. "Farmers in Georgia," the report finds, "have already received over $50 per acre ... while farmers in 34 other states received $25 or less, including 14 states that received $10 or less."

This makes no sense. The collateral damage from the Trump administration's trade policy is largely concentrated in the North Midwest, and West -- for example, as the Washington Post reported , the Trump trade wars have helped to nearly wipe out the dairy industry in Minnesota's Le Sueur County.

And yet, 95% of the counties selected to receive the top payment rate are in the South. I struggle to understand why an average-sized farm in Hancock County, Georgia, should be receiving $66,450 in payments under this program while a similar-sized farm in Sherman County, Oregon, is receiving less than $9,000.

Perhaps it's a coincidence that Georgia is widely seen as a swing state in the 2020 presidential election, and that Georgia's two Republican senators will both be facing re-election next year. But three years into its spree of disregarding norms, precedents, and even laws governing the misuse of official power for political ends, the Trump administration has not earned the benefit of the doubt.

Even in the best-case scenario, this is a careless use of taxpayer dollars on a scale that dwarfs any scandal in recent memory. Most of us know the name Solyndra by heart, because Republicans spent months investigating the Obama administration's failed $535 million loan guarantee for the energy company that went bankrupt. When it comes to the aid package for farmers, however, we are talking about $25 billion in taxpayer money -- a sum that is more than 46 times bigger.

That's why I'm asking the Trump administration to produce documents and make officials involved with decisions regarding the allotment of transportation and agriculture funding available for questioning. Perhaps the administration and its Republican defenders truly believe that massive factory farms in the South are more deserving of taxpayer assistance than small family farms in Minnesota. After all, when questioned about the future of the dairy industry, Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said , "In America, the big get bigger and the small go out."

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But perhaps these irregularities in funding are an extension of what we're learning about the Trump administration's approach to foreign policy -- that this President and his Republican enablers believe the power of the presidency exists to reward the loyal, not the deserving. Congressional oversight needs to be expanded accordingly, because if this President is allowed to get away with this abuse of taxpayer dollars, it will set a precedent for future leaders of this country.

Minnesotans in Moorhead dealing with that dangerous rail crossing, small farmers waiting in vain for promised assistance in the wake of the Trump trade disaster, and all Americans concerned with the integrity of their government need answers. We know what happened on that phone call with the Ukrainian President because a whistleblower bravely lodged concerns, journalists reported on the complaint, the White House released the transcript, and the House used its oversight powers to get to the truth. Now it's time for the House to do the same with these funding discrepancies and get the facts.

I know that the Trump administration has demonstrated no appetite for cooperating with legitimate congressional oversight -- but they should know that I fully intend to use every mechanism at my disposal to get the answers Minnesotans deserve anyway. The Trump administration may see no problem with shortchanging Minnesotans to reward its political allies, but I refuse to let that happen on my watch.