Trump Suggests Bringing Back Pork After ‘Drain the Swamp’ Campaign
- President suggests lawmakers revive practice of earmarks
- Yearns for era when pork ‘brought everybody together’
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President Donald Trump, who came to Washington vowing to “drain the swamp,” mused Tuesday about lifting the ban on congressional earmarks, the practice of larding legislation with pork-barrel payoffs.
Earmarks, which are provisions in legislation channeling federal funding to specific projects, have long been derided for encouraging wasteful or unnecessary spending to benefit politicians’ home-district constituencies, allies and donors. Yet some Washington veterans celebrate the role they once played greasing the operation of Congress, encouraging members to overcome differences so they could partake.