In Congress you need to have a majority of the people vote for a measure. So, let's say you need 182 votes to get a spending bill passed that would maintain our Highway Department. This make-believe "Highway Department Maintenance" Bill is "ear-marked" by the President--that is, he has asked for this money to perform a specific task. But, the Executive Branch has no right to put up any legislation--only the House of Representatives can propose a spending bill. But in the House, there are only 65 Representatives that really care about it. There are another 20 that will vote for it, because, well who knows why, they just will. That gives you only 85 votes, and you need 182. How will you get the other 97 to vote for it.
Well one of them up and says, "I don't like this bill--however, I think it would be palatable if $1,000,000.00 is budgeted to build a new bridge in my district." His vote can be bought--and that is a "pork-barrell" project. It isn't necessary for the Highways to be maintained. It is just something that will keep a whole lot of people in his district for the next 2-years designing, building, and otherwise happily working on. 86 votes down, 96-to-go. When the final vote comes down, the earmarked program--the one that was really requested--now has 97 other projects being built that have nothing to do with the program the US really wanted, and needed.
The bill we wanted was the "earmarked" expenditure.
The one that Congressmen added to it to insure their personal votes, were the "pork-barrel" pieces.
Sometimes, the bill ends up spending more money on the pork-barrel projects than it actually spent doing what it was originally intended to do!Can someone explain the difference between pork-barrel legislation and an earmark?
Let's get it straight that these two terms do not (DO NOT) mean the same thing. In checking the dictionary first, I find that "Port barrel" is a term that means legislation addeded to a bill or budget that benefits few people or only people in a specific district.
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Can someone explain the difference between pork-barrel legislation and an earmark?Ear-marked is pork-barrel. There's no difference. It's just a way the slick politicians separate themselves from the cheap ones.Can someone explain the difference between pork-barrel legislation and an earmark?Earmarking is difficult to explain, so I'll just give you the Wikipedia page where its explained.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earmark
I could explain pork barrel, but since I'm on Wikipedia already, I might as well just give you the page for that too. :)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pork_barrel鈥?/a>
If you still dont understand, say so. And I can try to put 'em both in layman's terms.Can someone explain the difference between pork-barrel legislation and an earmark?An earmark has already been allocated. Pork-
Barrel is over the top legislation. IE $25m. to
study the nature of lint on cashmire
