what is pork barrel politics 
pork barrel politics refers the legislative practice of slipping funding for a local project into a broader budget even when said project may have little or nothing to do with the larger bill often this funding may primarily benefit the legislator s home district serving to garner or preserve political support among constituents pork barreling can have the effect of substantially inflating the cost of legislation in modern politics pork barreling and earmarking may be seen as virtually synonymous on the other hand one could argue that pork barrel politics is simply a justified form of advocacy by legislators for their constituents understanding pork barrel politicspork barrel politics have been criticized for a number of reasons for some it raises concerns about wasteful spending pork barrel projects can be costly for the larger public to fund while only benefitting a more narrow group it can also be seen as unethical for elected officials to support projects simply to solidify political support for themselves or to provide lucrative contracts to their allies each year the fiscally conservative nonprofit organization citizens against government waste cagw publishes a compendium titled the congressional pig book which documents pork barrel projects in the federal budget 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 1 entries in the book need to satisfy at least two of following seven criteria in addition to all of the above a project or program must have appeared in prior years as an earmark in order to qualify as a pork barrel project the bipartisan budget act removed all constraints on pork barrel projects in 2018 the number of such projects and their overall price tag soared in 2019 2pork barrel vs earmarkspork barrel politics is an age old practice often the less pejorative term earmarking can refer to a similar idea in both cases sums of money are inserted as line items in the federal budget aimed at funding a specific project however the two terms are not identical projects that are earmarked may not be strictly local initiatives as pork barrel projects typically are 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 pork barrel reformin modern u s history there have been two major attempts to limit pork barrel politics 