Pork barrel

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Pork barrel, in a literal sense, is a barrel in which pork is kept, but figuratively is a supply of money that is provided to various supplicants who ask for it.

In politics, a pork barrel (or pork barrel politics) is a derogatory term describing government spending that is intended to benefit constituents of a politician in return for their political support, either in the form of campaign contributions or votes. The term is thought to have originated on Southern United States plantations, where slaves were allocated the unwanted remainder of slaughtered pigs, or the "pork barrel". Typically it involves funding for government programs whose economic or service benefits are concentrated in a particular area but whose costs are spread among all taxpayers. Public works projects and agricultural subsidies are the most commonly cited examples, but they do not exhaust the possibilities. Pork barrel spending is often allocated through last-minute additions to appropriation bills. A politician who supplies his or her constituents with considerable funding is said to be "bringing home the bacon".

1 United States
2 References
3 See also
4 External links

[edit] United States

One of the earliest examples of pork barrel politics in the United States was the Bonus Bill of 1817, which was introduced by John C. Calhoun to construct highways linking the East and South of the United States to its Western frontier using the earnings bonus from the Second Bank of the United States. Calhoun argued for it using general welfare and post roads clauses of the United States Constitution. Although he approved of the economic development goal, President James Madison vetoed the bill as unconstitutional. Since then, however, U.S. presidents have seen the political advantage of pork barrel politics. The Oxford English Dictionary gives the first appearance of the term in print as 1909, in the Westminster Gazette:

"The Democratic Party…has periodically inveighed against the extravagance of the present administration, but its representatives in the Legislature have exercised no critical surveillance over their appropriations. They have preferred to take for their own constituencies whatever could be got out of the Congressional 'pork barrel'."

One of the most famous (or infamous) pork-barrel projects was the Big Dig in Boston, Massachusetts. The Big Dig was a project to take a pre-existing 3.5 mile interstate highway and relocate it underground. It ended up costing $14.6 billion or over $4 billion per mile.<ref>http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2006/08/06/big_dig_failures_threaten_federal_funding/</ref>

Pork barrel projects or earmarks are added to the federal budget by members of the appropriation committees of Congress. This allows delivery of federal funds to the local district or state of the appropriation committee member, often accommodating major campaign contributors. To a certain extent a congressman or congresswoman is judged by their ability to deliver funds to their constituents. The Chairman and the ranking member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Appropriations are in a position to deliver significant benefits to their states. Likewise a Representative such as Anne M. Northup (R-Ky.), a Republican first elected in 1997 from the previously Democratic 3rd Congressional district (Louisville, Kentucky), was able to deliver significant financial benefits to her district through her appointment as a freshman member to the U.S. House Committee on Appropriations.