Earmarks feature in United States Congress spending policy, and they are present in public finance of many other countries as a form of political particularism.
"Earmark" comes from the livestock term, where the ears of domestic animals were cut in specific ways so that farmers could distinguish their stock from others grazing on public land.
"According to the federal Office of Management and Budget the term earmark referred to,[6] "funds provided by the Congress for projects, programs, or grants where the purported congressional direction (whether in statutory text, report language, or other communication) circumvents otherwise applicable merit-based or competitive allocation processes, or specifies the location or recipient, or otherwise curtails the ability of the executive branch to manage its statutory and constitutional responsibilities pertaining to the funds allocation process.
[4]: 1 Typically, a legislator seeks to insert earmarks that direct a specified amount of money to a particular organization or project in their home state or district.
[12] Congress is required by Article 1, Section 9, Clause 7 of the United States Constitution to pass legislation prior to the expenditure of any U.S. Treasury funds.
As congressional earmarks came into disfavor and eventually were prohibited, the ban "contributed to legislative gridlock and increased the difficulty of winning enactment of tax and immigration reform.
With an earmark, Congress directs a specified amount of money from part of an agency's authorized budget to be spent on a particular project.
In February 2011, Congress "imposed a temporary ban on earmarks, money for projects that individual lawmakers slip into major Congressional budget bills to cater to local demands.
Members of Congress can influence priorities and policy-making that promote projects that are important to their constituents by accessing discretionary DOT spending, through regular formula-based funding mechanisms and increased interaction with both transportation official as the federal and state levels.
In FY2007, with an earmark ban in place, President Bush's Administration's divided about $850 million, which represented almost all of the DOT's discretionary annual funding, to traffic congestion mitigation strategies in only five metro areas, Miami, Florida, Minneapolis, Minnesota, San Francisco, California, and Seattle, Washington through the Urban Partnership Agreement.
[33][page needed] There are also those who opine that earmarks are good because they are more democratic and less bureaucratic than traditional appropriation spending, which generally is not tailored to specific projects.
However, the federal earmark was withdrawn after meeting opposition from Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn, but only after the state of Alaska received $300M in transportation funding.
[38] Despite the demise of the bridge proposal, Governor Sarah Palin spent $26M in transportation funding for constructing the planned access road on the island that ultimately served little use.