Pork barrel spending

March 14, 2001
Web posted at: 4:55 PM EST (2155 GMT)

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After students read the CNNfyi.com article, "A barrel full of waste," ask the following questions:

1. What is "pork barrel" spending? Who are the Citizens Against Government Waste? What does their report reveal? How does the group define a pork project? Do you agree or disagree with their criteria? Would you add or delete any criteria? Explain.

2. In which states does the citizens' group find the most examples of pork spending? What are some of these examples? Do the projects sound reasonable to you? Why or why not? What is the correlation between the states accused of the most pork barrel spending and their senators? On which committee do most of the senators serve? Do you think this is a coincidence, or do you think that there is a direct link between the committee and the spending allocated for these senators' states? If you think there is a direct link, what actions should be taken?

3. To demonstrate how and why pork barreling occurs, have the class simulate a state legislature. Each of the students has been newly elected to represent their area (it could be their neighborhood or subdivision - an area with which they are very familiar). Ask each student to list his or her top 10 spending priorities, keeping in mind the constituents who voted him or her into office once -- and could do it again. Then have them narrow the list to five and present them to the class for consideration. Allow them to question and interact with each other. See if students group together and decide to package their requests in hopes of getting enough votes, and if they vote for one another's requests in exchange for votes on their projects.

After the exercise, hold a class discussion in which you ask how each student came up with his or her original lists. Chances are that they are projects needed by the people they represent. Are these projects important to their constituents? Are they important to the state as a whole? Why do they feel compelled to get their projects through the legislature? Use their discussion to illustrate how some of these pork barrel expenditures occur in real legislatures.

4. Senator John McCain has followed appropriations for 10 years to uncover add-ons he considers pork barrel spending. Students can go to his Web site to discover some of these expenditures. They can choose a particular link off of his site to analyze in terms of the examples of pork barreling and whether or not these add-ons seem valuable.

About Citizens Against Government Waste
How Congressional Earmarks and Pork-Barrel Spending Undermine State and Local Decisionmaking - Heritage
Senator John McCain - Legislation

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