Pork barrel

As the President said in his veto message, "It should also come as no surprise that over time the program has attained distinct flavor of pork barrel."

President Reagan used part of his State of the Union address to berate Congress for sending him catchall spending bills laden with pork barrel benefits for "cranberry research, blueberry research, the study of crawfish, and the commercialization of wild flowers."

Peacekeeping initiatives […] can dangle pork-barrel funding as an incentive to leaders who abide by the peace, enhancing their power and electoral popularity.

Similarly, earmarked, pork-barrel spending[…]is an invaluable tool for assembling bipartisan majorities for legislation because it helps members of Congress see the good a bill does for their constituents.

With an election not much more than a year away, distributing HS2's money into roads is pork barrel politics. Or at least it would be if the money existed.