Jennifer Lorenzo, age 15, of Barre, Vt.,for her question:

IN POLITICS, WHAT IS 'PORK BARREL'?

Legislators often try to obtain as many government projects and improvements for their own districts as they can. Bills appropriating money for such projects are usually called "the pork barrel."

Quite often a legislator will vote for expenditures in other districts, even though he may think them unnecessary or extravagant, in order to have legislators from those districts vote for projects in his district at a later date.

Excessive pork barrel practices have led to movements to give the President the power to veto individual items in an appropriation bill without killing the whole bill. Such movements, however, have failed.  

Defenders of the system point out that pork barrel projects, such as harbor or river improvements, actually help to increase the country's wealth by providing more public facilities.