Pork barrel is the appropriation – the act of setting apart something for its application to a particular usage, to the exclusion of all other uses – of government spending for localized projects secured solely or primarily to bring money to a representative’s district.
A caricature of Sarah Palin criticised for pork barrel politics
The usage originated in American English. In election campaigns, the term is used in derogatory fashion to attack opponents. Scholars, however, use it as a technical term regarding legislative control of local appropriations.
The term pork barrel politics usually refers to spending that is intended to benefit constituents of a politician in return for their political support, either in the form of campaign contributions or votes.
After the American Civil War, the term came to be used in a derogatory sense.
By the 1870s, references to pork were common in Congress, and the term was further popularized by a 1919 article by Chester Collins Maxey who claimed that the phrase originated in a pre-Civil War practice of giving slaves a barrel of salt pork as a reward and requiring them to compete among themselves to get their share of the handout.
Generally, a barrel of salt pork was a common larder item in 19th century households, and could be used as a measure of the family’s financial well-being. For example, in his 1845 novel The Chainbearer, James Fenimore Cooper wrote:
“I hold a family to be in a desperate way, when the mother can see the bottom of the pork barrel.”
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