The original metaphor was the pig. You could say, in the beginning was the pig. And the pig was with the politicians. And, boy, did the politicians pig out.

I refer, of course, to pork-barrel politics . . . that is, the kind of spending that usually falls under the rubric “earmarks” these days. Politicians love this “other white meat” because it allows them to take more direct credit for specific government spending.

But voters, for a number of reasons, have become increasingly fed up with earmarked, pork spending. They think of all that money wasted, tens of billions. Just a drop in the bucket, amongst trillions? Well, common sense suggests you cut the easy, least credible spending first.

And pork just seems wrong to many Americans, in part because it’s all very un-federalistic. The Federal Principle — which, you know, is right there in the Constitution — assigns to the federal government only those tasks that cannot be handled at state and local level. Local projects (such as libraries and bike paths and such) are, ipso facto, not federal in nature. Therefore, to allow politicians at the national level to spend money on them is something of an affront.

Besides, pork encourages corruption faster than you can say “trichinosis.” By slopping out huge dollops of the federal budget onto purely local projects, our representatives begin to think that their job is to spend federally raised tax money to appease influential constituents at home. It trades statesmanship for a never-ending auction, all to fund re-election campaigns.

And it corrupts us, too. When pork spending is prevalent, it becomes easy to get caught up in the feeding.

A Very Short History of Pork
First there were “internal improvements.” Then there was out-and-out “pork” — that is, piggish spending directed by federal representatives to their district.

Then, says H.L. Mencken, author of that great big book, The American Language, there was “pork-barrel spending.” Same thing as pork, really.

I confess: Before consulting that bible of American word history, I had assumed that “pork-barrel” had come first, and that “pork” was merely a shortened form of the term. I was wrong. “Pork” came first. Why the elaboration of the word? Perhaps the amount of pork had grown so much that Americans needed a metaphorical barrel to handle it all.

And then there were earmarks. Why call “pork” spending “earmarks”? Well, that was something of a mystery to me at first, too. It turns out that our representatives earmark legislation with their pork, like livestock herders earmark their cattle . . . and pigs. To assert ownership. Spending projects are earmarked into bills as a personalized alternative to specify spending . . . alternative to the normal way of directing spending. This does seem to be the meaning of the term.

But we have learned something interesting these last several years: Many spending initiatives called “earmarks” are not exactly inserted into legislation properly, but somewhat surreptitiously into legislative addenda, the explanatory notes attached to the legal text of bills passed by Congress.

There is a reason the spending is directed this way. It allows politicians to get credit from special interests without being public enough to risk criticism.

The Way We Earmark Now
There is a name for these addenda-placed earmarks: “soft earmarks.” And there is a method, which can be summarized in one interjection: Shhhh.

It seems all congressfolk need do is ask, politely, that something be funded. No mention of who really gets the money; no mention, even of the amount. But hey, if asked-for nicely enough, the executive branch has proved more than willing to fund . . . without all the fuss and mess of Congress voting.

Fund what? Oh, a Christian shortwave radio in Madagascar. Pest-fighting efforts in Maryland. Saving hawks in Haiti.

According to the New York Times, these have all been funded without anyone in Congress, or on congressional staff, ever really writing out what the cost would be, or even saying “fund this.” It’s all very polite.

And insidious. Ron Nixon, in the aforementioned Times, presents us with chilling news indeed: Continued...