The term “earmark” refers to federal spending for a specific project for a particular congressional district, locality, or state. Earmarks have been controversial, but nevertheless were reinstated by Congress in 2021 after a 10-year moratorium. Some argue that earmarks help create a smoother and more transparent appropriation process, enabling local jurisdictions to more directly request and access funds that are well-targeted to their needs. On the other hand, some believe that earmarks too often reflect wasteful spending on “pet projects” that are used as tokens in the larger budget process. Let’s look at earmarks as part of the budget, economy and our overall fiscal outlook.

What Are Earmarks in an Appropriation Bill?

Earmarks, also known as “congressionally directed spending” or “community project funding,” allow legislators to allocate funding to specific projects in their jurisdiction. Definitions and rules surrounding earmarks vary between the House and Senate, but such funds can be used for spending at the request of a member who must submit a certification letter explaining the purpose of the funds. An earmark is authorized via a provision written into an appropriation bill that directs a specific amount of money to a certain entity for a project. What separates earmarks from the broader appropriation process is that they are generally targeted to spending that serves only a local or special interest (such as $8,000 for a harbor project by U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Maryland) rather than provided as part of a lump sum to an agency to distribute according to its evaluation process.

Without the ability to earmark, members of Congress would have to find other avenues for acquiring funding for a favored project, such as encouraging the beneficiary to submit a grant request to the relevant agency or go on the record and argue for funding before a committee.

What Is the History of Earmarks?

The Constitution broadly gives the Legislative Branch the power to spend, but lawmakers have been historically hesitant to use direct federal dollars to fund local projects that could be handled by state or local governments. Beginning in the 1980s, earmarks became a more widely accepted practice, as lawmakers increasingly began allocating federal funds directly to help their constituents with local projects. In the 1990s, the use of earmarks in Congress became increasingly frequent, and they eventually became codified by formal definition in 2007. Around the same time, earmarks were linked to heightened corruption — most infamously, the “Bridge to Nowhere,” where an Alaska representative directed $223 million of taxpayer funds to construct a bridge between a small Alaskan town and an even smaller island (50 residents) that housed an airport. Another example of misuse was when a California representative resigned and pleaded guilty to accepting kickbacks from military contractors for directing earmarks to them.

After earmarks were linked to corruption, lawmakers implemented reforms, including requiring Members of Congress to add their names to the earmarks and enhancing the transparency of earmark recipients. Those new transparency and ethics rules helped reduce earmark spending — such budget authority averaged 2.8 percent of discretionary spending per year from 2000 to 2006, before dropping to an annual average of 1.3 percent over the 2007 to 2010 period. In response to growing concerns over earmarks, despite the reforms, Congress began a 10-year earmark moratorium, or ban, in 2011. Because the moratorium existed in the bylaws of political parties, and not in House or Senate rules, some earmarks still made it into appropriation bills during that period.