Pork barrel is government spending that is targeted to benefit the residents of a certain constituency in return for their political support.
The term is often used in a derogatory sense to refer to public projects that do not make economic sense but are still carried out purely for political purposes.
It was coined by American writer Edward Everett Hale in his 1863 story “The Children of the Public”. Politicians who compete for support from voters tend to promote pork barrel projects as a form of competitive populism.
Infrastructure projects are the most common example of discretionary pork barrel spending.
