Why Should Congress Dump Earmarks in 2026? | Chip Wyatt
Heritage Explains
Heritage Podcast Network
4.7 • 847 Ratings
🗓️ 17 December 2025
⏱️ 20 minutes
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Summary
In the 20th century, the traditional agriculture term “earmarking” gained traction in US politics, becoming slang for the mechanism of including smaller, regionally targeted spending for particular constituencies in larger spending bills. This was often done to appease a particular group or to provide leverage to get an individual legislator on board with a bill. But do they really serve the American public? At Heritage, we don’t think so.
I sat down with Chip Wyatt, Government Relations Director at Heritage Action for America, to learn why.
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Check out Heritage Action: heritageaction.com
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Have thoughts? Let us know at heritageexplains@heritage.org
Transcript
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| 0:45.9 | The This is Heritage Explains. If you were an English peasant farmer in the 1500s, your daily problems would look different. |
| 0:52.0 | On the one hand, you wouldn't have a plumbing bill. On the other, |
| 0:55.5 | you wouldn't have plumbing, that kind of thing. One problem you definitely would have, though, |
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| 1:07.0 | animals. One of the solutions that our medieval brethren developed for this was the |
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