The U.S. national debt recently surpassed $37 trillion for the first time, as the federal government continues to accumulate debt at a record-setting pace. That includes a $1.9 trillion deficit for fiscal 2025, per Congressional Budget Office projections.

So, it might seem odd that some self-proclaimed fiscal conservatives are pushing to include earmarks, specific spending items directed by members of Congress, into an appropriations bill that must be enacted by the end of September to keep the federal government open. It’s just the sort of practice Republicans have long hammered Democrats over as fiscally irresponsible when Team Blue has held majorities in the House and Senate.

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Yet that’s just what’s happening as GOP leaders in both chambers, working with President Donald Trump‘s administration, consider the size and duration of a spending bill for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1.

A contingent of Republicans is pushing for community project funding, their preferred term instead of “earmarks,” to be included in the continuing resolution to be negotiated as Republicans run the levers of government.

In March, House and Senate leadership cut earmarks from stopgap legislation to avert a government shutdown as a way to get support from fiscal conservatives. But that was then, with earmarks gaining support in perhaps surprising corners of the House Republican Conference heading into September, when the August congressional recess comes to a close.

“It definitely is an odd coalition,” Dominik Lett, budget policy analyst at the libertarian Cato Institute, told the Washington Examiner.

For instance, conservative Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) has pushed for the inclusion of community project funding in forthcoming funding legislation.

“Funding to support critical infrastructure projects like water, roads, and community projects will AGAIN be left not funded,” she said on X if earmarks are left out of a September spending bill.

Rep. Laurel Lee (R-FL) told the Washington Examiner that securing community project funding is one of the ways that lawmakers can make a “real difference” in the districts they represent.

“Community project funding is one of the most effective ways Congress can directly respond to the needs of the people we represent,” Lee said in a statement. “These investments are transparent, targeted, and designed to strengthen our communities.”

Some lawmakers in the pro-business Main Street Caucus are among those pushing for the inclusion of earmark funding to avert a government shutdown. They’ve touted the idea to House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA).

“We’ve been very clear with the speaker: An overwhelming majority of our members want community project funding in this budget,” Main Street Caucus Chair Mike Flood (R-NE) told Politico.

Rep. Andy Harris (R-MD), chairman of the conservative Freedom Caucus, is also indicating that allowing earmarks in a short-term CR would avert the need for a full omnibus spending bill that would be even more costly.

Earmarks have traditionally had their supporters and detractors.

Boosters argue that earmarks help grease the gears of politics and allow for legislation and deals to get passed while providing the constituents of lawmakers with benefits. While the individual projects add up to chump change when it comes to the ballooning federal deficits and debt, which are driven by big-ticket spending items such as Social Security, Medicare, and defense.

Yet in the eyes of critics, earmarks have come to symbolize profligate spending. In this view, members of both parties feed at the public trough through “pork barrel” projects aimed, not very subtly, at effectively buying voters’ goodwill — and presumably also earning their votes in the next election. The earmark process, skeptics note, has the federal government paying for roads, bridges, and lots of other public works projects that should be handled by state and local elected officials.

Earmarks were popular during the 1990s and 2000s, but amid the tea party movement, their usage was effectively banned after Republicans swept into the House during the 2010 midterm elections and greatly narrowed with Democratic control of the Senate at the time. When Democrats had control of Congress in 2021 and Joe Biden was president, congressional leaders restored earmarks as community project funding.

But in March, the government funding bill nixed earmarks, a loss of more than $15 billion in funding for various projects across the country — setting up the scenario Congress is facing now to restore them.

Peter Loge, director of the George Washington University School of Media and Public Affairs, told the Washington Examiner that earmarks have been part of the legislative process for a long time and can help get things done.

“It’s a way for elected officials to demonstrate to folks back home that they’re doing the people’s business, or they’re helping them,” Loge said. “It’s a way for people in leadership in Congress to persuade people to vote with them.”

He emphasized that community project funding is one way that political rivals can work together and get things done.

“You have to give political opponents a reason to stop shouting at each other,” Loge said. “One reason to stop shouting at a political opponent is if they have something you want, like funding for a project to help a local school, or a local hospital, or a local road.”

Lett, who said he thinks the practice of earmarks should be abolished outright, said Washington shouldn’t pay for many projects. He said political expediency and the desire for lawmakers to campaign on what they secured through the process make the practice popular.

“The issue is that these things should be funded on the state level,” Lett said. “These are normally issues that states are much better equipped to handle, but legislators want to get a win to present to voters, so they kind of encourage this form of lobbying.”

Jason Roe, a veteran Republican consultant, pointed out that while the savings from earmark bans relative to overall spending are relatively minimal, the issue cuts deeper.

“To me, it’s more symbolic that if you are going to be the party of deficit reduction, you should practice what you preach within your own office, in your own districts,” he told the Washington Examiner.

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Roe also pointed out that earmarks are politically expedient for elections.

“When you look at the vulnerable members out there, they’re putting in earmark requests, and probably going to get them, and I assume that GOP leadership in the House sees those earmarks as advantageous to reelection campaigns, and probably the downside of allowing them to continue is pretty small,” he added.