Pork barrel politics have existed as long as government. Throughout history, the people who create laws often try to fund unnecessary projects to keep their constituents happy. Pork barrel politics have long pervaded the U.S. Federal Government as well. U.S. lawmakers are notorious for slipping favored projects into various spending bills. Often a particular project is inserted into a spending bill in the dead of night, bypassing normal budget authorizing procedures. This way lawmakers can divert federal funds into their districts, increasing their own chances to win future reelection campaigns. Favored projects can be anything that creates economic opportunity in a lawmaker's district. Often pork barrel projects are construction projects, research projects, or matters of social spending.

US Question #1: What is pork barrel politics?

Pork barrel spending has long been criticized by many political groups and individuals. Critics claim that pork spending projects simply strengthen political support for a lawmaker with their district, but ignore the needs of the larger nation. Pork barrel projects have also been attacked as being used to award contracts to companies that have donated money to a lawmaker's campaign. Lawmaker's have long accused each other of excessive pork spending, but in reality, most lawmakers have at one time or another inserted a pork project into a spending bill. Individual pork projects can be small, $3 million here, $2 million there, but the price of pork adds up quickly. The 1996 congress passed an estimated $14.5 billion in pork barrel spending. Congress has since spent many billions more on projects designed to help individual districts and the lawmakers that work for them.

CS Question #2: How much money was spent on pork barrel projects in 1996?

Sometimes pork projects look legitimate. The spending bills go to projects to build bridges, dams and other forms of infrastructure. Other pork projects immediately strike one as questionable. Thanks to pork funding the U.S. has done ground-breaking research into wood handicrafts ($4.2 million) and has the worlds only remaining military service blimp ($1.4 million). In 1996 projects included:
· $250,000 to fund research into floriculture in Hawaii
· $473,000 to study human nutrition and snack foods
· $19.6 million for the International Fund for Ireland, including funding for golf videos, pony trekking centers and sweater exports
· $681,000 on new latrines at Fort Harrison, Montana
· $1,214,000 for research into potatoes.

CS Question #3: Cite some examples of pork barrel spending.

Lawmakers are far from embarrassed by pork barrel politics. Senator Conrad Burns was cited by an organization called Citizens Against Government Waste as being conducive to pork spending. Burns' press secretary told a reporter "Montana has not had a member on the appropriations committee since Senator Mike Mansfield . . . Conrad feels that there are a certain amount of discretionary funds in the budget and Montana has been neglected over those years. One person's pork is another person's legitimate expenditure." Lawmakers often say they disagree with pork barrel politics, but as long as Congress funds discretionary projects it is their responsibility to help their constituents. Senator Phil Gramm once said he'd oppose building a cheese factory on the moon, but "if we decided to do it, I'd want a Texas firm to do the engineering [and] I would want to use milk from Texas cows."

CS Question #4: Why do lawmakers pass pork projects into law?

Further thought:

1. How do pork projects help individual districts?
2. How do pork projects ignore national interests?
3. How is a pork project defined?