The Return of Earmarks: $14.6 Billion and Counting
Published: February 2025
Banned in 2011, back in 2021. Congressional pork is alive and well.
Earmarks by Year (2006–2024)
Where Earmarks Go (FY2024)
Top Categories
Key Finding
8,000 earmarks in FY2024 — and they're growing. The earmark ban lasted exactly one decade (2011–2020). When they returned, they came back under new names: "Community Project Funding" in the House and "Congressionally Directed Spending" in the Senate. Different label, same pork.
Greatest Hits: Earmark Hall of Shame
Bridge to Nowhere (Alaska, 2005) — $223M for a bridge serving 50 people
Teapot Museum (North Carolina) — $500K for a teapot-themed museum
Lobster Institute (Maine) — $188K to study lobster
Indoor rainforest (Iowa) — $50M for a climate-controlled tropical forest in a state with winters below zero
Woodstock Museum (New York) — $1M to commemorate the 1969 music festival (requested by Hillary Clinton, blocked by John McCain)
Accountability or Corruption?
Defenders of earmarks argue they provide transparency — at least you know who requested the spending. Without earmarks, the same money gets spent anyway through agency discretion, just with less visibility. There's some truth to that.
But critics have a point too: earmarks are how Congress buys votes. A bridge here, a museum there — it's horse-trading with taxpayer money. The system incentivizes lawmakers to bring home the bacon rather than cut the budget. Every earmark is a politician saying "I spent your money in my district" and calling it a win.
The real question isn't whether earmarks are transparent — it's whether $14.6 billion in congressionally directed pet projects is the best use of limited resources. When the national debt exceeds $36 trillion, the answer should be obvious.
Source: Congressional Research Service, AAAS, House/Senate Appropriations Committees