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Pork barrel, or simply pork, is a metaphor for the appropriation of government spending for localized projects secured solely or primarily to direct expenditures to a representative's district. The usage originated in American English , and it indicates a negotiated way of political particularism .
Earmarks have often been treated as being synonymous with "pork barrel" legislation. [28] Despite considerable overlap, [29] the two are not the same: what constitutes an earmark is an objective determination, while what is "pork-barrel" spending is subjective. [30] One legislator's "pork" is another's vital project. [31] [32]
This type of spending is derided by critics as pork barrel spending, while those who engage in it generally defend it as necessary and appropriate expenditure of government funds. The members of the Appropriations committee can do this better than most, and better direct funding towards another member's district, increasing the stature of ...
But like fiscal responsibility and concern about America's ballooning entitlement costs, those efforts to limit pork barrel spending are now distant memories. Democrats voted to reinstate earmarks ...
President Obama wants the ability to trim congressional pork barrel spending as part of new legislation he introduced Monday. The so-called "Reduce Unnecessary Spending Act of 2010" would allow ...
Additionally, Madison was appalled at the logrolling and blatant pork barrel spending that accompanied the Bonus Bill debates. That led him to believe that "special-interest issues like internal improvements inexorably corrupted the legislative process."
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Congress granted this power to the president by the Line Item Veto Act of 1996 to control "pork barrel spending", but in 1998 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the act to be unconstitutional in a 6–3 decision in Clinton v. City of New York.