September 15th, 2008
The Term “Pork Barrel Spending”
Posted by
Michael Calienes in
miscellany
The term “pork barrel spending” has been so prevalent in the debates that I did a little digging to find out about its origins, and it seems we’ve spent so much time focusing on what the term represents that we’ve forgotten where the term originated.
From the US History Encyclopedia: “Pork barrel” originally referred to American slaves’ rushed attempts to obtain some of the pork given to them as a group in large barrels. The term entered the political vocabulary after the Civil War.
From Wikipedia: The term originated early in American history, when slaves were sometimes given a barrel of salt pork as a reward and had to compete among themselves to get their share of the handout.
So, now I’ve got one more reason to hate pork barrel spending.
