Define pork barrel programs

Pork-barrel legislation refers to appropriations of public funds by Congress or other legislative bodies for pet projects that serve the interests local districts these legislators represent, rather than the interests of the larger population. Public works and agricultural subsides are often cited as examples of pork-barrel legislation.

Other examples of such pork-barrel legislation include federal appropriations designed to prevent closure of obsolete or unneeded military installations, prisons, VA hospitals and the like. What one legislator perceives as an important improvement for his district or state, another might view as an unfair distribution of federal funds.

Those that use the term in a pejorative sense are critical of the fact that a specific project benefits only one district or region, and that similar benefits do not flow to other areas in the nation with similar needs. The award was apparently made because the supplier of the tanks had operations across several congressional districts.

There are countless examples of pork barrel politics, but often these kinds of negotiations are hard to sniff out as they are buried within other bills. Earmarking is the Congressional practice of putting money aside for a certain purpose. Congress has now put a moratorium on the practice of earmarking since it became a gateway for pork barrel spending, projects approved based on personal relationships, or under-the-table deals made with special interest groups.

In politics, they are virtually synonymous nowadays. Appropriations are the budget process of Congress setting aside money for a particular purpose, agency, or program. When Congress adds a provision to a bill in the legislative procedure, this is known as a rider. In the past, earmarking a certain bill which could veer on the side of pork-barrel politics would be tucked into a bill but not as an official addendum. The name " pork barrel politics " derived from when enslaved people would receive barrels of salted pork as a "reward" from the people that owned them.

This dates as far back as the early s. Citizens Against Public Waste. The New York Times. The Wall Street Journal. The Hill. Census Bureau. Taxpayers for Common Sense. Montana State University. Actively scan device characteristics for identification. Use precise geolocation data.

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Your Money. Personal Finance. Your Practice. Popular Courses. Before a bill gets to a vote, pork-barreling has often greatly inflated its costs through the addition of various legislators' pet projects. In modern politics, pork-barreling and earmarking have become virtually synonymous. To be fair, one politician's pork-barrel politics is another's constituent service.

CAGW defines a pork-barrel project as a line item in an appropriations bill that designates tax dollars for a specific purpose while circumventing established budgetary procedures. In addition to all of the above, a project or program must have appeared in prior years as an earmark in order to qualify for the Pig Book. The Bipartisan Budget Act removed all constraints on pork-barrel projects in The number of such projects and their overall price tag soared in The year was a record-breaker for both the number and cost of pork-barrel projects added to the federal budget , according to CAGW.

Pork barrel politics was probably invented by the first legislator who ever lived, but it survives today, often under the slightly less pejorative term earmarks. In either case, it is a sum of money inserted as a line item in the federal budget that funds a specific project.

If there is a difference, projects that are earmarked may not be strictly local. For example, a legislator who has or wants a strong base of support among educators or technology companies might add an earmark to the budget that funds a pet project of one of those constituencies.

In modern U. However, the line-item veto has been adopted in 44 states, allowing governors to remove earmarks from state spending bills. Citizens Against Government Waste. Actively scan device characteristics for identification. Use precise geolocation data. Select personalised content. Create a personalised content profile. Measure ad performance. Select basic ads.