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A pork barrel, literally, is a barrel in which pork is kept. The term is more commonly used as a political metaphor for the appropriation of government spending for projects that are intended primarily to benefit particular constituents or campaign contributors. This usage originated in American English.

In other countries the practice is often called patronage, but this word does not always imply corrupt or undesirable conduct. The pork-barrel metaphor has spread to the variety of English used in other countries such as the UK, Australia and New Zealand that have parliamentary democracies as opposed to Presidential systems.^[1] Similar expressions, meaning "election pork", are used in Denmark (valgflæsk) and Sweden (valfläsk), but there they mean promises made before an election.^[2]

Pork barrel politics refers to 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 originated early in American history, when slaves were sometimes given a barrel of salt pork as a reward, and had to compete among themselves to get their share of the handout.^[3] 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."

In 1991, Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) and the Congressional Porkbusters Coalition developed seven criteria for a project to qualify as pork:

• Requested by only one chamber of Congress;
• Not specifically authorized;
• Not competitively awarded;
• Not requested by the President;
• Greatly exceeds the President’s budget request or the previous year’s funding;
• Not the subject of congressional hearings; or
• Serves only a local or special interest.^[4]

A possible etymology comes from economist and three-term U.S. senator Paul H. Douglas who writes: "Each year (Senator Kenneth) McKellar's great hour came when he brought up his Rivers and Harbors Appropriations bill, universally known as 'the pork barrel.'" (Douglas, 1971, page 252) ^[5]

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 appearances of the term in the late 19th century:

1873 Defiance (Ohio) Democrat 13 Sept. 1/8 Recollecting their many previous visits to the public pork-barrel,..this hue-and-cry over the salary grab..puzzles quite as much as it alarms them. 1896 Overland Monthly Sept. 370/2 Another illustration represents Mr. Ford in the act of hooking out a chunk of River and Harbor Pork out of a Congressional Pork Barrel valued at two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.^{[citation needed]}

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.^[6]

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 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.

• Porkbusters
• Earmarking
• Golden Fleece Award
• Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006
• Gravina Island Bridge
• Lobbying
• Interest group

• Taxpayers for Common Sense
• Citizens Against Government Waste
• John McCain speech on pork
• opensecrets.org — Data on money in politics
• U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Appropriations
• "Pet projects make roads bill a real Lulu — of excess", USAToday, 2005-08-09
• Americans for Prosperity is a conservative action group that educates taxpayers about pork projects
• Conservative Socialism by Alexander S. Peak
• What Your Government Is Doing for (to) You by Harry Browne