pork barrel

noun

: government projects or appropriations yielding rich patronage benefits

also : pork sense 2

Did you know?

You might expect that the original pork barrels were barrels for storing pork-and you're right. In the early 19th century, that's exactly what pork barrel meant. But the term was also used figuratively to mean "a supply of money" or "one's livelihood" (a farmer, after all, could readily turn pork into cash). When 20th-century legislators doled out appropriations that benefited their home districts, someone apparently made an association between the profit a farmer got from a barrel of pork and the benefits derived from certain state and federal projects. By 1909, pork barrel was being used as a noun naming such government appropriations, and today the term is usually used attributively in constructions such as "pork barrel spending" or "a pork barrel project."

Examples of pork barrel in a Sentence

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Losers House Speaker Mike Johnson: The Louisiana Republican is facing fierce backlash and threats to his speakership next Congress over what hard-line conservatives characterize as wasteful pork barrel spending. —Ramsey Touchberry, Washington Examiner - Political News and Conservative Analysis About Congress, the President, and the Federal Government, 18 Dec. 2024 In addition to the endowment, NMSU is also pursuing athletic department monies from the bursting pork barrels of individual legislators. —Daniel Libit, Sportico.com, 3 Sep. 2019