pork barrel

American  

noun

Informal.

1. a government appropriation, bill, or policy that supplies funds for local improvements designed to ingratiate legislators with their constituents.

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pork barrel British  

noun

1. slang

   1. a bill or project requiring considerable government spending in a locality to the benefit of the legislator's constituents

   2. ( as modifier )

      pork-barrel spending

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pork barrel Idioms  

1. Government funding of something that benefits a particular district, whose legislator thereby wins favor with local voters. For example, Our senator knows the value of the pork barrel. This expression alludes to the fatness of pork, equated with political largesse since the mid-1800s. [c. 1900]

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Other Word Forms

• pork-barrel
  adjective
• pork-barreling
  adjective

Etymology

Origin of pork barrel

An Americanism dating back to 1905–10

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

pork barrel

“Water projects came to epitomize the pork barrel; they were the oil can that lubricated the nation’s legislative machinery.”

From Slate ● Aug. 28, 2024

He survived to become a crusader for campaign finance reform and against pork barrel spending.

From The Guardian ● Jun. 17, 2016

A graver worry may be how it can govern without some sort of pork barrel.

From Economist ● Jun. 26, 2014

"A lot of people want to believe our looming budgetary crisis is caused by bridges to nowhere" and other pork barrel projects, said Cato Institute vice president Gene Healy.

From Washington Post ● May 25, 2010

And I bake every Saturday, and Shad brings fish on Friday, and they’s a pork barrel full of meal, and we float eggs in a crock of vinegar...”

From "Sula" by Toni Morrison