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Earmarks, pork barrel projects and logrolling | US government and civics | Khan Academy - YouTube
Channel: Khan Academy
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what we're going to do in this video is
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focus on the budget process in the u.s
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congress and just as a reminder that's
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one of the major functions of the united
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states congress is to pass a budget for
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the executive branch to decide how much
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money the executive branch has to use to
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actually function
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and when it comes to the budget the two
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most powerful committees are the
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appropriations committees in the house
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of representatives and in the senate
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they get to decide how much money goes
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to various departments and programs in
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the federal government
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just for context let's get a broad view
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of what the federal budget looks like
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and how it has changed over time
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so over here you see the trend from the
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early 80s all the way until projected a
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few years into the future at the time of
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this video being created and you can see
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the absolute level of the federal budget
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has gone from a little under 1 trillion
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and it is now approaching 4 trillion
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and this view of the breakdown of the
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various spending areas gives us a better
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sense of some trends as we mentioned in
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other videos there's a significant chunk
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of mandatory spending mandatory spending
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or things that by law we have already
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obligated ourselves to
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and the big ones here are social
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security and medicare and you can see
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that they have gone collectively from a
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little over 20 percent of the federal
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budget to now approaching almost
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two-thirds of the federal budget now
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another chunk of this budget that we are
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obligated to pay is the net interest on
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our national debt we are borrowers as a
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country and so we need to pay interest
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now everything else here you can
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consider to be discretionary that would
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be this national defense piece right
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here in purple and then everything above
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this net interest piece and that's what
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the appropriations committees are going
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to decide on where to spend that money
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how much does national defense get and
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how much do these other priorities for
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the country get
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now generally speaking the amount of
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money allocated to various programs and
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various departments how it is spent
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tends to be decided by the executive
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branch congress's job is to set the
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budget but that is not always the case
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congress can also set aside portions of
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this budget for specific projects
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and the setting aside of parts of the
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budget for specific projects
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is known as ear marks
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and to make things tangible here are
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some examples of earmarks from the
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highway bill that was passed in 2005.
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and as you can see it just lists a bunch
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of special projects and this goes on for
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tens and sometimes hundreds of pages so
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here in california there's a project to
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construct safe access to streets for
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bicyclists and pedestrians including
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crosswalks sidewalks and traffic calming
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measures in covina california four
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hundred thousand dollars if we go down
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here to number five renovate and expand
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national packard museum and adjacent
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historic packard facilities and that is
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almost three million dollars
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and so one thing that's probably
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crossing your mind is hey this is a
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national highway bill and you have these
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little projects that seem very very very
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local and these earmarks here these
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set-asides because they feel sometimes
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wasteful or they're being used more as a
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political tool versus something that the
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federal government should actually worry
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about sometimes these types of earmarks
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are referred to as pork barrel projects
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pork
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pork
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barrel projects and the reason why i
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introduced both words are earmarks are
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just a general thing you can decide
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whether they're good or bad many of
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those earmarks that i listed even though
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they are for specific projects in
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specific locations they seemed at least
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related to the highway bill but it would
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be very reasonable for some folks to say
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why is congress in the business of
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funding these specific projects isn't
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their job to just set the budget to
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figure out how much the department of
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transportation gets and then let them as
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part of the executive branch decide how
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to execute on improving the national
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highway system or our transportation
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system and so they would argue that that
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is pork that those are pork barrel
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projects that those are government waste
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now to get a sense of how significant
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earmarks and debatably pork barrel have
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been in the past
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we have this chart from citizens against
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government waste and it shows earmarked
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spending from 1991 to 2016.
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and you will immediately notice some
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things going from 1991 all the way until
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about 2006 you have this steady upward
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trend in earmarked spending all the way
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to the peak in 2006 of 29 billion
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dollars of ear marks but then something
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interesting happens in 2011 it looks
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like it gets pretty close to zero and
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then it starts trending up from there
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but it's much lower than it was before
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and that's because as we get into this
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period after 2006 earmark spending
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become a very big political issue some
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of these projects there was famously an
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earmark for a bridge to an island in
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alaska that was going to cost several
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hundreds of millions of dollars it was
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later canceled but it got a lot of press
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and a lot of politicians started to make
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it their mission to do away with earmark
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spending some of these pork barrel
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projects were easy to get people worked
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up about and said hey look this is a
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sign of government waste and so in the
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end of 2010 both the senate and the
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house of representatives passing
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resolutions to end earmark spending
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although you can see that it still
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exists in some way at least according to
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the citizens against government waste
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now at first this seems very good
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because 29 billion dollars on things
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like museums or maybe bridges that go to
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islands that very few people live on
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does not seem like a good idea it seems
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like classic examples of government
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waste but it's also important to keep it
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in context remember the federal budget
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is approaching four trillion dollars so
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even in 2006 when the federal budget was
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a little under three trillion dollars
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this was only about one percent of the
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federal budget
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and so even though earmarks which often
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get called pork barrel projects became a
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lightning rod for a lot of media
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attention because they seemed so
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wasteful
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in most years they represent well under
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one percent of the federal budget and
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there are folks who would even argue
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that earmarks are a good thing
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by essentially allowing congress people
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to set aside an earmark for something in
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their district it allows it it makes it
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easier for bills to get passed and it's
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only costing us less than one percent to
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do it it's only something that's
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streamlining the political process
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other arguments they make is these
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earmarks aren't spending above and
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beyond the regular budget if they do not
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set aside this money for these projects
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in these various districts or in these
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various states well then the executive
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branch is just going to decide on how to
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use that money and ideally the executive
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branch would open these things up for
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bid these would be competitive processes
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but there's examples of the executive
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branch also favoring certain regions or
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certain projects so the budget could
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arguably be the same whether or not
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there are those earmarks it's really a
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question of whether it is congress that
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is deciding where these special projects
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go or whether it is the executive branch
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now another term that you might often
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hear with the legislative process
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something that helps streamline it is
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the term log rolling
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now log rolling can apply to a lot of
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things not just in terms of where you
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spend money
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log rolling is just the idea that let's
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say that i am
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congress person a and you are
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congressperson b and i really
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like this bill right over here i like
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bill number one and you like bill number
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two and i agree to support you
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if you agree to support me here i
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described log rolling where we support
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each other's bills but we could even
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have log rolling where we support each
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other's parts of bills for example i'll
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support your transportation museum in
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your state if you support my bicycle
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path in my state
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so i'll leave you there the big
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takeaways here are to appreciate the
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size of the federal budget where it gets
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spent and some of the processes used to
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help pass that federal budget we also
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talked about earmarks which sometimes
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get called pork barrel projects and it's
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interesting for you to think about after
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this video are they good or are they bad
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at first especially when you look at the
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media attention they seem clearly bad
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they seem wasteful but when you think
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about that they're less than one percent
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of the budget and they might help
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streamline the passing of other
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important legislation maybe making it
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even more bipartisan who knows some
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would argue that they might not be as
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bad as people first believed you decide
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