talkstraight:

The White House may have used its power to “buy” votes from Democrats in Congress via “administrative earmarks,” according to a new report from The Heritage Foundation.

“An examination of ‘administrative earmarks’ around the time of congressional votes on key pieces of President Obama’s agenda suggests the White House used its power to fund local projects as a means to ‘buy’ votes for major legislative efforts,” writes the Heritage Foundation’s Lachlan Markay.

How do “administrative earmarks” work? Simply put, it’s when the federal government shifts funds from its discretionary budget to specific projects. However, this is less “transparent than legislative earmarking,” since, according to the Congressional Research Service, “[t]here is no source that defines and comprehensively identifies Administrative earmarks.”

And, according to the Heritage Foundation, the Obama administration has been doubling down on the practice.

“[An] analysis of grants from agencies during the early years of the Obama administration shows that the districts of moderate Democrats, whose support was so crucial for Obama during the 111th Congress, received large sums right around the passage of three key pieces of legislation,” Lachlan Markay writes.

Care to guess which three pieces of legislation required a little “encouragement” via federal grants? If you guessed “Obamacare,” Dodd-Frank, and the cap-and-trade bill, you’re a winner.

“During the run-up to votes in the House of Representatives for each of those pieces of legislation, the rate of administrative earmarking spiked,” Heritage reports.