Voters Favor Ban on Earmarks, But Not Strongly

Earmarks. Pork barrel spending. Call it what you will. Congress views the recent elections as a mandate to cut government spending, and first on the list is a ban on allowing legislators to steer money to their favorite home projects. But voters aren’t quite as gung-ho.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that nearly half (48 percent) of likely U.S. voters favor a ban that prohibits all members of Congress from steering taxpayer money to pet projects in their home districts.

However, 36 percent oppose such a ban on the practice that allows legislators to pump millions of extra dollars into their home states, and another 15 percent are not sure about it, according to the Nov. 17-18 survey of 1,000 likely voters.

Only 10 percent of voters think taxpayer money is fairly apportioned among all the states. Three-fourths say some members of Congress make sure their states get more money than other states, and 14 percent aren’t sure which is the case.