Earmarks, pork barrel projects and logrolling | US government and civics | Khan Academy
Summary
TLDRThis video delves into the US Congress's budget process, highlighting the Appropriations Committees' pivotal role in allocating federal funds. It traces the budget's growth from under $1 trillion to nearly $4 trillion and dissects spending areas, emphasizing the rise of mandatory spending like Social Security and Medicare. The video also explores earmarks, or 'pork barrel' projects, questioning their necessity and impact on the budget. It discusses the political controversy around earmarks, their peak in 2006, and the subsequent decline due to public and political pressure. The narrative concludes by pondering the value of earmarks in facilitating legislative processes, challenging viewers to consider their merits.
Takeaways
- 🏛️ The primary role of the US Congress in the budget process is to pass a budget for the Executive Branch to allocate funds.
- 💵 The federal budget has grown significantly, from under $1 trillion in the early 1980s to approaching $4 trillion.
- 📈 Mandatory spending, including Social Security and Medicare, now accounts for nearly two-thirds of the federal budget.
- 💼 The Appropriations Committees in the House of Representatives and the Senate are the most influential in deciding federal spending.
- 🏦 Interest on the national debt is another significant portion of the budget that the government is obligated to pay.
- 🛑 Discretionary spending includes national defense and other non-mandatory areas, which the Appropriations Committees decide on.
- 🔑 Earmarks are specific budget allocations for particular projects and are sometimes considered pork barrel projects.
- 🚧 Earmark spending peaked in 2006 at $29 billion but declined significantly after 2011 due to political controversy.
- 📊 Earmarks, despite media attention, typically represent less than 1% of the total federal budget.
- 🤝 Logrolling is a legislative practice where politicians support each other's bills or bill components to advance their interests.
- 🤔 The debate over earmarks includes arguments for their utility in streamlining legislation and concerns about their potential for waste.
Q & A
What is one of the major functions of the United States Congress?
-One of the major functions of the United States Congress is to pass a budget for the Executive Branch to decide how much money it has to use to function.
Which committees are most powerful when it comes to the budget in the US Congress?
-The Appropriations Committees in the House of Representatives and in the Senate are the most powerful when it comes to the budget.
How has the federal budget changed from the early 1980s to the present?
-The federal budget has increased from a little under $1 trillion to approaching $4 trillion from the early 1980s to the present.
What is considered mandatory spending in the federal budget?
-Mandatory spending includes Social Security and Medicare, which are obligations by law and have grown to almost two-thirds of the federal budget.
What is the role of the Appropriations Committees in deciding the federal budget?
-The Appropriations Committees decide how much money goes to various departments and programs in the federal government.
What is the term for setting aside parts of the budget for specific projects?
-The term for setting aside parts of the budget for specific projects is called 'earmarks'.
What are some examples of earmarks from the Highway Bill passed in 2005?
-Examples of earmarks from the 2005 Highway Bill include a project for safe access to streets for bicyclists and pedestrians in California with a budget of $400,000, and the renovation and expansion of the National Packard Museum for nearly $3 million.
Why are some earmarks referred to as pork barrel projects?
-Some earmarks are referred to as pork barrel projects because they are seen as wasteful or used more as a political tool rather than serving the federal government's actual concerns.
What happened to earmark spending after 2006?
-After 2006, earmark spending became a significant political issue, leading to both the Senate and the House of Representatives passing resolutions to end earmark spending by the end of 2010.
How significant is earmark spending in the context of the total federal budget?
-Earmark spending, even at its peak, represents well under 1% of the federal budget, which is significant but relatively small in comparison to the total budget.
What is the argument for earmarks being a good thing?
-The argument for earmarks being a good thing is that they allow Congresspeople to set aside funding for projects in their district, which can help pass bills and streamline the political process, costing less than 1% of the budget.
What is the term used to describe the practice of supporting each other's bills or parts of bills in the legislative process?
-The term used to describe the practice of supporting each other's bills or parts of bills in the legislative process is 'logrolling'.
Outlines
💼 Budget Process in US Congress
This paragraph discusses the budget process in the US Congress, emphasizing the role of Congress in passing a budget for the Executive Branch. It highlights the Appropriations Committees in both the House of Representatives and the Senate as the most influential in deciding federal spending. The paragraph provides a historical overview of the federal budget's growth from under $1 trillion to approaching $4 trillion. It breaks down the budget into mandatory spending, such as Social Security and Medicare, which now constitute nearly two-thirds of the budget, and discretionary spending, which includes national defense and other priorities determined by the Appropriations Committees. The concept of earmarks, or setting aside budget portions for specific projects, is introduced, with examples from the 2005 Highway Bill. Earmarks are sometimes criticized as pork barrel projects, seen as wasteful or politically motivated expenditures.
📈 Earmark Spending and Its Impact
The second paragraph delves into the history and controversy surrounding earmark spending. It presents a chart showing a steady increase in earmark spending from 1991 to a peak of $29 billion in 2006, followed by a significant drop in 2011 due to political backlash against such spending. The paragraph discusses the public and political perception of earmarks as symbols of government waste, exemplified by the 'bridge to nowhere' in Alaska. Despite the controversy, the paragraph points out that earmarks represent less than 1% of the federal budget, questioning their actual impact. It also presents arguments in favor of earmarks, suggesting they facilitate the passage of legislation and are a minor cost in the broader context of the budget. The concept of logrolling is introduced as a mechanism to streamline the legislative process, where politicians support each other's projects or bills to achieve mutual benefits.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Budget Process
💡Appropriations Committees
💡Federal Budget
💡Mandatory Spending
💡Discretionary Spending
💡Earmarks
💡Pork Barrel Projects
💡Logrolling
💡Citizens Against Government Waste
💡Executive Branch
💡Bipartisan
Highlights
The United States Congress has a major function of passing a budget for the Executive Branch.
The Appropriations Committees in the House of Representatives and the Senate are the most powerful in deciding federal spending.
The federal budget has grown from under $1 trillion in the early 80s to approaching $4 trillion.
Mandatory spending, such as Social Security and Medicare, now accounts for almost two-thirds of the federal budget.
The net interest on the national debt is another obligated expenditure in the budget.
Discretionary spending includes national defense and other non-mandatory budget items.
Congress can set aside portions of the budget for specific projects known as earmarks.
Earmarks can be seen as pork barrel projects, which are often considered wasteful or politically motivated.
Earmark spending peaked at $29 billion in 2006 but dropped significantly after 2011 due to political controversy.
Earmarks represent less than 1% of the federal budget, despite media attention suggesting otherwise.
Some argue that earmarks are beneficial for streamlining the political process and passing legislation.
Earmarks are not additional spending but rather a decision on where to allocate budgeted funds.
The term 'logrolling' refers to the practice of legislators supporting each other's bills or bill parts to achieve mutual benefits.
Logrolling can streamline the legislative process and potentially make it more bipartisan.
The video challenges viewers to consider whether earmarks are good or bad for the budget process.
The size of the federal budget and its allocation are key takeaways from the video.
Transcripts
- [Instructor] What we're going to do in this video
is focus on the budget process in the US Congress.
And just as a reminder, that's one of the major functions
of the United States Congress is to pass a budget
for the Executive Branch to decide how much money
the Executive Branch has to use to actually function.
And when it comes to the budget,
the two most powerful committees are
the Appropriations Committees
in the House of Representatives and in the Senate.
They get to decide how much money goes
to various departments and programs
in the federal government.
Just for context, let's get a broad view of what
the federal budget looks like
and how it has changed over time.
So over here you see the trend from the early 80s
all the way until projected a few years into the future
at the time of this video being created.
And you can see the absolute level of the federal budget
has gone from a little under $1 trillion
and it is now approaching $4 trillion.
And this view of the breakdown of the various spending areas
gives us a better sense of some trends.
As we mentioned in other videos, there's a significant chunk
of mandatory spending.
Mandatory spending are things that by law
we have already obligated ourselves to.
And the big ones here are Social Security and Medicare
and you can see that they have gone collectively
from a little over 20% of the federal budget
to now approaching almost 2/3 of the federal budget.
Now another chunk of this budget that we are obligated
to pay is the net interest on our national debt.
We are borrowers as a country
and so we need to pay interest.
Now everything else here you can consider
to be discretionary.
That would be this national defense piece
right here in purple and then everything
above this net interest piece.
And that's what the Appropriations Committees are going
to decide on, where to spend that money.
How much does national defense get and how much
do these other priorities for the country get?
Now generally speaking, the amount of money allocated
to various programs and various departments,
how it is spent tends to be decided by the Executive Branch.
Congress's job is to set the budget
but that is not always the case.
Congress can also set aside portions of this budget
for specific projects.
And the setting aside of parts of the budget
for specific projects is known as earmarks.
And to make things tangible, here are some examples
of earmarks from the Highway Bill that was passed in 2005.
And as you can see, it just lists a bunch
of special projects and this goes on for tens
and sometimes hundreds of pages.
So here in California, there's a project to construct
safe access to streets for bicyclists and pedestrians
including crosswalks, sidewalks,
and traffic calming measures
in Covena, California, $400,000.
If we go down here to number five, renovate and expand
National Packard Museum and adjacent historic
Packard facilities, and that is almost $3 million.
And so one thing that's probably crossing your mind
is hey, this is a national highway bill and you have
these little projects that seem very, very, very local.
And these earmarks here, these set asides,
because they feel sometimes wasteful or they're being used
more as a political tool versus something
that the federal government should actually worry about,
sometimes these types of earmarks are referred to
as pork barrel projects,
pork barrel projects.
And the reason why I introduced both words are earmarks
are just a general thing.
You can decide whether they're good or bad.
Many of those earmarks that I listed, even though they are
for specific projects in specific locations,
they seemed at least related to the Highway Bill,
but it would be very reasonable for some folks to say
why is Congress in the business
of funding these specific projects?
Isn't it their job to just set the budget
to figure out how much the Department of Transportation
gets and then let them, as part of the Executive Branch,
decide how to execute on improving
the national highway system or our transportation system?
And so they would argue that that is pork,
that those are pork barrel projects,
that those are government waste.
Now to get a sense of how significant earmarks
and debatably pork barrel have been in the past,
we have this chart from Citizens Against Government Waste
and it shows earmark spending from 1991 to 2016.
And you will immediately notice some things.
Going from 1991 all the way until about 2006,
you have this steady upward trend in earmark spending
all the way to the peak in 2006
of $29 billion of earmarks.
But then something interesting happens.
In 2011, it looks like it gets pretty close to zero
and then it starts trending up from there,
but it's much lower that it was before
and that's because as we get into this period after 2006,
earmark spending became a very big political issue.
Some of these projects, there was famously an earmark
for a bridge to an island in Alaska that was going
to cost several hundreds of millions of dollars.
It was later canceled but it got a lot of press
and a lot of politicians started to make it their mission
to do away with earmark spending.
Some of these pork barrel projects were easy
to get people worked up about,
and say, hey look, this is a sign of government waste.
And so in the end of 2010, both the Senate
and the House of Representatives passed resolutions
to end earmark spending, although you can see
that it still exists in some way, at least according
to the Citizens Against Government Waste.
Now at first, this seems very good because $29 billion
on things like museums or maybe bridges that go to islands
that very few people live on does not seem
like a good idea.
It seems like classic examples of government waste.
But it's also important to keep it in context.
Remember the federal budget is approach $4 trillion.
So even in 2006, when the federal budget was a little
under $3 trillion, this was only about 1%
of the federal budget.
And so even though earmarks, which often get called
pork barrel projects, became a lightning rod
for a lot of media attention
because they seemed so wasteful,
in most years, they represent well under 1%
of the federal budget.
And there are folks who would even argue that earmarks
are a good thing by essentially allowing Congresspeople
to set aside an earmark for something in their district.
It makes it easier for bills to get passed
and it's only costing us less than 1% to do it,
and it's only something that's streamlining
the political process.
Other arguments they make is these earmarks aren't spending
above and beyond the regular budget.
If they do not set aside this money for these projects
in these various districts or in these various states,
well, then the Executive Branch is just going to decide
on how to use that money.
And ideally the Executive Branch would open these things
up for bid, these would be competitive processes,
but there's examples of the Executive Branch
also favoring certain regions or certain projects.
So the budget could arguably be the same
whether or not there are those earmarks.
It's really a question of whether it is Congress
that is deciding where these special projects go
or whether it is the Executive Branch.
Now another term that you might often hear
with the legislative process, something
that helps streamline it, is the germ logrolling.
Now logrolling can apply to a lot of things,
not just in terms of where you spend money.
Logrolling is just the idea that let's say that I am
Congressperson A and you are Congressperson B,
and I really like this bill right over here.
I like bill number one and you like bill number two,
and I agree to support you, if you agree to support me.
Here I describe logrolling where we support
each others bills but we could even have logrolling
where we support each others parts of bills.
For example, I'll support your transportation museum
in your state, if you support my bicycle path in my state.
So I'll leave you there.
The big takeaways here are to appreciate the size
of the federal budget, where it gets spent,
and some of the processes used to help pass
that federal budget.
We also talked about earmarks which sometimes get called
pork barrel projects.
And it's interesting for you to think about
after this video, are they good or are they bad?
At first, especially when you look at the media attention,
they seem clearly bad, they seem wasteful.
But when you think about that they're less than 1%
of the budget, and they might help streamline the passing
of other important legislation, maybe making it even
more bipartisan, who knows, some would argue
that they might not be as bad as people first believed.
You decide.
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