A pork barrel, literally, is a barrel in which pork is kept. The term is more commonly used as a political metaphor for the appropriation of government spending for projects that are intended primarily to benefit particular constituents or campaign contributors. This usage originated in American English.

Pelosi stopped a Repulican moratorium which would have stopped PBS for a year. She wants to form a bipartisin panel to "STUDY" PBS. Another D.C. ploy to keep poking PBS in every bill while GWB is in office to add to his "Conservative" spending total. This is SOP, "Standing Operating Procedure" by professional, political parasites for voting morons.

Sounding more and more like a national candidate, NYC's mayor blasts pork-barrel politics and says Washington had no plan to restore the crumbling US infrastructure.

Bloomberg spokesman called proposal "stunning," saying the city's Homeland Security funding was already inadequate. "NYC, the only American city to be attacked multiple times by terrorists, has made the case for risk-based distribution of funds instead of the usual pork-barrel politics that have plagued this program from the start," spokesman said.

This is about as ugly as pork-barrel politics can get: politicians are so in debt to four of five ailing giants from the entertainment industry that they're prepared to deny low-income children access to a college education if universities don't punish kids for listening to music and piss away money on a useless service that no one wants to use.

Obama’s ideas on trimming the fat on pork-barrel politics are visionary. I find myself agreeing with him on a good majority of issues, and as far as the democratic candidates go he understands the principles of our free market economy as well or better than any of them.