How the Pork Game Is Played

All politics is not only local, as the adage goes; it also revolves around cash — and that’s certainly true at the City Council. As The Post reported Saturday, Speaker Corey Johnson has funneled some $2.1 million in “discretionary funding” to clients of lobbyist John “Sean” Crowley, the brother of Queens Democratic boss Rep. Joe Crowley.

That’s a 39 percent hike over the same clients’ cut in the last budget, before Johnson became speaker — in good part thanks to Rep. Crowley’s influence.

The dynamic plays out across the spectrum: As Monday’s Post revealed, funding for a Staten Island youth-jobs program vanished after its director challenged Councilwoman Debi Rose, whose committee controls youthprogram funding, in the 2017 primary.

Such are the real rules for discretionary spending — a k a pork. Yes, the pols claims funding decisions are made “on the merits,” with “reforms” set up to prevent “abuse.” But the slush funds remain slush funds.

Indeed, that rise in “Crowley pork” may have been so hefty because the last speaker won the job despite the opposition of the Queens machine. Yes, oh-so-progressive Melissa Mark-Viverito steered funds to clients of the consulting firm that aided her campaign. She also slashed an annual grant to an institute whose director wouldn’t back her push to make terrorist Oscar Lopez Rivera the star of the Puerto Rican Day Parade.

Good-government types have targeted this kind of thing since — well, forever. Iit’s a violation of the public trust and an invitation to corruption.

The only remedy: No more pork. Period.