# How much of an impact do earmarks make on the budget? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 2, 2006, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-of-an-impact-do-earmarks-make-on-the-budget/378884 "2006-11-02T20:10:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![SweetHomeColorado](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d26b3c/32.png) [@SweetHomeColorado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SweetHomeColorado)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2006, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-of-an-impact-do-earmarks-make-on-the-budget/378884/1 "2006-11-02T20:10:20Z")
Has Congress generally increased or decreased the use of earmarks in legislation? Can anyone provide me with any facts regarding the general amount of spending that has been spent on earmarks passed in legislation? Thanks!! ---
**Author:** ![flurb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/51bf81/32.png) [@flurb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flurb)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2006, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-of-an-impact-do-earmarks-make-on-the-budget/378884/2 "2006-11-02T21:07:12Z")
An good starting place for you to explore is the [Congressional Pig Book](http://www.cagw.org/site/PageServer?pagename=reports_pigbook2006) compiled and published by Citizens Against Government Waste, a taxpayer watchdog organization. According to their criteria, the Fiscal Year 2006 budget included 9,963 porkbarrel projects costing $29 billion. ---
**Author:** ![muttrox](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a8b319/32.png) [@muttrox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/muttrox)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2006, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-of-an-impact-do-earmarks-make-on-the-budget/378884/3 "2006-11-02T21:40:44Z")
Pork is not equal to earmarks. I’m sorry I don’t have links, but I believe the effect of earmarks is relatively speaking very low. It is just because they are so blatant that they are a fairly easy form of pork to focus on. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2006, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-of-an-impact-do-earmarks-make-on-the-budget/378884/4 "2006-11-02T21:48:38Z")
They have increased enormously. In 1987, Ronald Reagun vetoed a bill because it had too many earmarks; it had 152. The transportation bill passed in 2005 had **6,371**. > [@](#): > > When Taxpayers for Common Sense analyzed the most recent House transportation bill, we found a staggering 4,128 earmarks [_in May, of 2005, before the final bill was passed -FI_] worth more than $12.4 billion. Based on the size of the House proposal, earmarks would make up seven percent of the total bill. By contrast, fiscal year 2005 appropriations bills, which were themselves plenty full of earmarks, contained only 4.3 percent earmarks. This puts the transportation earmarks out of line with even the well-earmarked appropriations bills. The fact is, earmarking on Capitol Hill has exploded in recent years, and the transportation bill is no exception. Just one year ago, the House’s bill contained 3,251 earmarks worth about $10.8 billion. In 1991, that number was about $6 billion [http://www.taxpayer.net/Transportation/briefingremarks.htm](http://www.taxpayer.net/Transportation/briefingremarks.htm) ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2006, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-of-an-impact-do-earmarks-make-on-the-budget/378884/5 "2006-11-02T22:09:36Z")
There are two kinds of fiscal effects in earmarks. The first is on the total budget. While $29 billion (or whatever) may sound like a lot, in terms of the total US spending it isn’t that much. The real problem is that the money is effectively removed from other programs that could really use that money. E.g., some congressional bigshot orders the NSF to fund some dippy program at the state U in his district. But the NSF’s budget is not increased to compensate so some real research gets cut. (And you could double the budget of NSF and other such departments and not cause a noticable ripple in the overall US budget. But people don’t have perspective when it comes to dealing with large numbers.) Of course there are huge political effects and such in such earmarks, but that’s a whole 'nother topic. ---
**Author:** ![rbroome](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/838e76/32.png) [@rbroome](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rbroome)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2006, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-of-an-impact-do-earmarks-make-on-the-budget/378884/6 "2006-11-03T03:03:18Z")
[QUOTE=ftg] There are two kinds of fiscal effects in earmarks. The first is on the total budget. While $29 billion (or whatever) may sound like a lot, in terms of the total US spending it isn’t that much. The real problem is that the money is effectively removed from other programs that could really use that money. E.g., some congressional bigshot orders the NSF to fund some dippy program at the state U in his district. But the NSF’s budget is not increased to compensate so some real research gets cut. (And you could double the budget of NSF and other such departments and not cause a noticable ripple in the overall US budget. But people don’t have perspective when it comes to dealing with large numbers.) Of course there are huge political effects and such in such earmarks, but that’s a whole 'nother topic. [/QUOTE] True in the long run. But the usual procedure is that the congressperson does increase the budget (otherwise there would be no effect on the budget from earmarks) for the first couple of years. Then the agency is left with the task of funding the program out of existing money-or letting it go away. Both things happen. Earmarks are bad for several reasons, but the main one is that the people in charge of planning the budget-everyone understands that ultimately congress is in charge of the budget, but plans are different-lose control of what they are paid to do. The impact on the budget is relatively minor, the impact on the ability of the executive branch to plan expenditures is more significant. ---
**Author:** ![flurb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/51bf81/32.png) [@flurb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flurb)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2006, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-of-an-impact-do-earmarks-make-on-the-budget/378884/7 "2006-11-03T03:38:51Z")
[QUOTE=muttrox] Pork is not equal to earmarks. I’m sorry I don’t have links, but I believe the effect of earmarks is relatively speaking very low. It is just because they are so blatant that they are a fairly easy form of pork to focus on. [/QUOTE] While the definition of “pork” is up for some debate, I think that what most people mean by the term is Congressionally-mandated spending on specific projects in specific locations. This is overwhelmingly done through earmarks in the 13 annual appropriations bills, and in certain other legislative spending vehicles such as the surface transportation and Corps of Engineers authorizations.