Legislative Pork, Pork Barrel Quotes
of requests from conservative Congressmen who want pork projects added to appropriation bills In one of the great ironies of Washington, Dyer was named “Porker of the Year” yet there was no pork placed in appropriations bills that were not specifically requested (insisted upon) by a member of Congress.
The bills that Congress tends to pass provide benefits for very few but spread the costs over many of not the whole population. In the majority of concentrated benefits, the beneficiaries have made large campaign donations and/or have retained powerful lobbyists. They are special interests in the truest sense of the word. See {633225} for a good example of this principle.
The sense of the word affair is the general purpose, and Smith was referring to the fact when he investigated any proposed or implemented public scheme or law, there was an objective of someone obtaining money as a consequence. As journalists say in covering politics, “follow the money.”
This is a perennial problem whenever the Chief's of Staff want to cut any program. Even if the program is a failure or is no longer needed Congress fights cuts tooth and nail. Then they make speeches decrying government spending and especially waste, when the vast majority of the waste is in programs or operations upon which they have insisted.
President Jefferson in 1803, in the first instance of presidential impoundment, deferred for a few months the building of gunboats for which Congress had appropriated funds. In 1876 the President actually refused to spend the congressionally appropriated funds for river and harbor improvements in the midst of bad economic times:
