Q: I've been hearing a lot of talk lately on the news about reforming earmarks in Congress. Unfortunately, no one ever explains what exactly an earmark is. Given the name, I would guess it is some kind of agricultural thing. Can you shed some light on this?

A : An earmark is a sum of money allocated to a specific project within a piece of legislation (a bill) in Congress. An example would be say, the $3 million directed towards City College of New York for the Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Servicein last year's appropriation's bill that funded federal health and human services agencies (Department of Labor, Health and Human Services Department, and the Department of Education).

Normally, federal agencies calculate their own budget needs and request funds (appropriations...