what is earmarking 
earmarking is the practice of setting particular money aside for a specific purpose the term can be used in several contexts such as in congressional appropriations of taxpayer funds to individual practices like mental accounting understanding earmarkingthe phrase has an agricultural origin farmers would cut recognizable notches in their livestock s ears to mark the animals as belonging to them in its most basic sense to earmark is to flag something for a specific purpose in practice it generally means to set funds aside for a particular project a company might earmark a sum to spend on upgrading its it system or a city government might earmark the proceeds of a municipal bond issue to pay for a new road or bridge in social science the term earmarking has been associated with the economic sociologist viviana zelizer who identifies the practice of earmarking as imbuing certain dollars with specific meaning related to the relational ties and cultural meaning for what that money is earmarked for claiming the not all dollars are equal therefore money earmarked for a loved one will be treated more carefully than money for a friend likewise people may be more willing to lend money to somebody they trust than a stranger the behavioral economics concept of mental accounting is a case of personal earmarking whereby people allocate money to specific tasks or purposes making those funds non fungible earmarking doctrine in bankruptcy lawin bankruptcy law the earmarking doctrine allows certain borrowed funds to be excluded from a bankrupt party s assets as long as they were lent to the borrower 90 or fewer days before the bankruptcy filing and were lent with the express intention of paying a specific creditor earmarking ensures that the funds will go to the intended creditor rather than being subject to claims by other creditors who have preference in the bankruptcy proceedings the doctrine is based on the idea that because there was no net decrease in the bankrupt party s asset base the funds never really belonged to the bankrupt party they borrowed from peter to pay paul earmarks in politics and appropriationsearmarking is a longstanding and controversial practice in the u s congress where parties have historically won support for contentious votes by offering or threatening to revoke funds for projects in particular members districts absent such earmarking funds are apportioned to agencies of the executive branch which decide what specific projects to spend federal money on say for example that a party wants to pass a law banning a particular toxic substance a move that would be popular with its supporters nationwide the party controls the minimum number of seats to pass the law but one member is hesitant to vote for it because a factory in their district would have to cut jobs if the substance were banned to win the member s vote the party might amend the bill to include an earmark a port in their district would receive federal funds for an upgrade rather than a port a hundred miles up the coast such earmarks also known as pork barrel spending or pork for short are controversial they are seen as a form of corruption allowing d c power brokers to trade in the fortunes of the people they represent and squander taxpayers money on giveaways to particular districts the most famous recent example of an earmark is the bridge to nowhere a 398 million bridge that would have connected an island housing an airport and 50 permanent residents to a larger island containing the city of ketchikan alaska in 2005 members of congress pushed to defund the bridge and divert the money to rebuild a bridge destroyed by hurricane katrina but senator ted stevens r alaska threatened to quit congress if the earmark was scrapped the bridge was not built but funds for a road leading to it continued to flow so the state built a three mile highway from the airport that dead ends at the shore passing nothing on the way outrage over pork led congress to ban earmarks in 2011 with republicans leading the effort citizens against government waste a fiscally conservative watchdog group claims that this ban has failed in practice writing in its 2017 pig book pork barrel spending is alive and well in washington d c despite claims to the contrary 1 the group counted 285 earmarks worth 16 8 billion in fiscal 2021 up from 274 worth 15 9 billion the previous year and a 74 8 increase from the 163 in 2017 2leaving aside the ban s effectiveness some commentators have called for earmarking to be restored in a 2014 new york times op ed columbia journalism professor thomas edsall argued the prohibition on earmarks has done nothing to restore respect for congress just the opposite it has contributed to legislative gridlock and increased the difficulty of winning enactment of tax and immigration reform 3edsall also wrote that earmarks role in building majorities was essential and that banning them would have little effect on the perception of congress as corrupt due to the near simultaneous loosening of campaign finance laws the citizens united decision was handed down in 2010 43another argument in favor of the practice of earmarking is that members of congress are more accountable than the bureaucrats who otherwise make decisions about how to allocate money apportioned to their agencies these members of the executive branch are appointed by the white house and cannot directly be voted out of their positions finally some consider the costs of earmarking to be negligible compared to the costs of the gridlock edsall described 3 notably 398 million for a questionable bridge pales in comparison to the monetary and nonmonetary costs of a broken immigration system tax code or healthcare sector the argument goes 