Pork-Barrel Spending

The term comes from the nineteenth-century practice of storing salted pork in barrels, and by the 1870s pork barrel described federal money that members of Congress brought home for local projects. Rivers and harbors bills, which funded dredging, dams, and ports across many districts, were classic examples, and Presidents including Chester Arthur vetoed them as wasteful. Over time the term came to cover any spending, such as roads, buildings, research grants, and military bases, directed to a particular district primarily for political benefit.

Political scientists call this distributive politics: projects concentrate benefits in one district while spreading costs across all taxpayers, giving lawmakers an incentive to seek them. Members often trade support for one another's projects, a practice called logrolling, which can help assemble majorities for larger bills. The Gravina Island Bridge in Alaska, dubbed the Bridge to Nowhere, became a national symbol of pork in 2005, and the group Citizens Against Government Waste has published an annual Pig Book of questionable projects since 1991.

Pork overlaps with earmarks, provisions directing funds to specific recipients. Congress banned earmarks in 2011 amid public criticism and restored them in 2021 under new names and with disclosure rules, a requirement that members certify no financial interest, and a cap on their total. Defenders say members know their districts' needs better than agency officials, and that modest local spending greases the wheels of compromise. Critics say it wastes money, favors senior and well-placed members, and invites corruption. Spending one observer calls pork, another may call a needed investment.