Know Your Pork!!

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.

It is said 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.

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."

One of the most famous 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.