“The Bridge to Nowhere”: earmarking, pork barreling and their effects on American politics

In 2005, the Congress approved the project for the construction of the bridge, that would have costed around $315 million. And while that number could seem rational for the big-scale important construction project, that bridge was supposed to connect the town of Ketchikan, population 9000, with Gravina Island, population 50. The purpose of the bridge was to replace the already existing 7-minute ferry route. And as a federal project, its cost was to be paid directly from the taxpayers’ money.

Is that a fair distribution of the taxpayers’ money? Or is it wasteful, when only a few people benefit from the good, subsidized by all the population?

This example is one of the most prominent cases of earmarking. In this article, we will try to answer three main questions: What is earmarking and how do we distinguish it from pork barreling? What are their effects on politics and economy? What is being done to reduce it in the US?

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The term earmarking refers to a practice, that permits a Congress member to request funds for particular projects (Sidman, 2018). This practice was legal and widely used until its ban in 2011. At the same time, earmarking is a special case of pork barreling, which is a process, that allows legislators secure spending on projects and programs for their constituencies (Sidman, 2018). In other words, these are the spendings, that benefit only limited amount of people, but which costs are spread among all taxpayers. These practices often become a tool of legislators’ reelection strategy, as financial support for the constituency increases their chances to attract voters (Guenther and Searle, 2019: 832). Pork barreling is considered an informal governance practice as it is a form of rent extraction and distribution. It is linked to political parties, who became the bedrock of organized power in modern states (Heywood, 2018). Even though there is evidence of pork barreling in other countries, the most attention it receives in the United States. Our case with the bridge in Alaska was one of many of that kind, but it was the has gained massive public attention and started the discussion because of the amount of money earmarked. Rep. Young, who proposed the project, was claimed to have “significant political power”, which he used to support projects that in the eyes of citizens were wasteful and unjustified, so here we can see a clear and prominent example of earmarking. The main aspect that distinguishes earmarking is that it is very objective and legal term, it is transparent what kinds of transactions count as earmarks. The term "pork barrel" is on the other hand subjective, and we can only guess if a specific spending was a "pork".

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How does this practice affect politics and economy? First of all, the obvious consequence of earmarking is a waste of taxpayers’ money on unnecessary projects and possibilities for corruption. The non-profit organization Citizens Against Governmental Waste releases annual reports, in which they expose cases of earmarking throughout the fiscal year, which they call “Congressional Pig Book”. For example, in year 2019 they identified 282 earmarks for a total cost of $15,3 billion, which is a substantial increase since 2018. Secondly, as one study suggests, there is a negative relationship between earmarking and policymaking effort. The harder a MC works to cultivate success for their policy proposals, the lower their haul of earmark dollars (Guenther and Searle, 2019: 844). We can assume that some politicians choose to keep their offices not by working hard on the legislation, but rather by securing pork for their projects and promoting it for elections. Thirdly, earmarking reduces the polarization in Congress (Hedlund, 2019: 66). This is explained by the fact that closer the legislator to the ideological median of the Congress, the more likely they are to receive the share of the pork-barrel funding. One can argue whether this is a positive or negative feature. I personally think that less polarization can lead to an excessively centrist discourse and to implementing populist policies. Therefore, we can observe a rather negative impact of pork barreling and earmarking on all aspects of policymaking.

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So what is being done to reduce these practices? In 2011, when Republicans took the office, earmarks were banned. The case with the "Bridge to Nowhere" played a part and became almost a synonym to wasteful spending. Nevertheless, this had little effect on overall pork barrel spending (Sidman, 2018). Right now, the issue is back to the discourse, with some prominent politicians willing to let them back, claiming that they never accounted for a meaningful portion of federal spending, and the ban hasn't made them disappear, they still exist but without any accountability. However, they still can be an opening window for corruption.

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Guenther, Scott M., and David M. Searle. "Limited Time, Limited Resources: Trade-Offs in Congressional Earmarking and Policymaking." American Politics Research 47.4 (2019): 832-851.

Hedlund, Aaron. "Pork-Barrel Politics and Polarization." (2019): 57-68.

Sidman, Andrew H. "Pork Barreling (USA)" The Global Encyclopaedia of Informality vol. 2 (2018): 385-388

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