Earmarks: Corruption in Plain View (Bill Moyers Journal)

I was trying to sleep with PBS’s Bill Moyers Journal in the background, but sadly the episode I was watching from February of this year was a bit too infuriating to sleep to.

In a collaboration with Exposé, Bill Moyers recaps the investigation by the Seattle Times into the origins (and results) of congressional and senatorial earmarks found in the 2007 Congressional Defense Bill.  The bill, not surprisingly, was replete with quid pro quo and the grand larceny of taxpayers in service of the re-election of our members of Congress.  I’m more shocked that there was anything in the bill left over to address national defense.  What was surprising was the lack of an attempt at even maintaining plausible deniability by members of Congress.  With the exception of dense and obfuscating language and nomenclature, the corruption is in plain view for anyone willing to do the work (as investigative reporter David Heath was willing to do for us, and provide a FANTASTIC database of online).

I highly recommend viewing the segment in its entirety, but here are a few points from the program that are keeping me up at this awful hour (5:43am EST, Monday morning, as I am typing this sentence…):

• Only 13 of 525 members of congress sponsored no earmarks in 2007.  Rookies.  What can you do?
• John Murtha (D-PA) was #2 in earmarks for 2007 at $176 million for 2007, narrowly being beat out by Roger Wicker (R-MS) $177 million.  I have $10 on John Murtha in my 2008 Corruption office pool, so I have vested interest in John’s ’success’ this year.  But I hope we can stop pretending like corruption is a problem exclusive to the Republican party.  They just do it a hair better than the Democrats.
• “When Heath found the 2007 Defense Appropriations Conference Committee Report online, he struck gold: 2700 earmarks, worth nearly 12 billion dollars.”  That’s for a $400 billion dollar Defense Bill.  I guess we shouldn’t be too mad.  3% is far less than any gratuity you’d ever leave at a restaurant.  If only government spending even approached 97% non-corrupt.
• $160 million was spent on lobbying in 2006, according to David Heath.  A nice, clean, 75:1 earmarks to lobby ratio.  And that’s just the Defense Bill.  The segment doesn’t make it clear if the $160 million was spent lobbying for the Defense Bill specifically (I don’t see how it could be).  So the ratio is likely closer to 150:1 or 200:1.  Nice returns.  Why invent or invest or even work hard when the highest and most reliable returns can be had by calling your local congressman?
• Patty Murray (D-WA) is described by representatives of the Seattle Times as a “friend”.  No paper should ever think of a politician as a friend (not just because of my impression of the character deficiencies Congress requires) as they are inevitably going to be appropriate targets of investigation and opinion.  The chumminess that is pursued by journalists with their subjects is understandably appealing in providing access, but is far offset by the impact it could have on objective reporting and the abuse of the news outlet from the other direction (where the politician might find value in releasing favourable information to their friends at the Seattle Times).
• Having made that last point, The Seattle Times does highlight Patty Murray’s unvarnished corruption with her $19.5 million in combined earmarked spending for Seattle’s Microvision Corporation’s Nomad device, which, according to those in the military that were to use it, is a total piece of crap.  Bonus points for Ms. Murray for providing that all at a cut-rate: a measly $5,000 worth of contributions from Microvision between 2001 and 2007.  For the sake of Ms. Murray, I hope she received the equivalent of $20,000 more in cash, sex, and coke, off the record.  Special bonus points for transparency in government for her as she received all the contributions in one day, apparently, and then announced a $5.5 million earmark a month later.  Extra special bonus points for transparency in government for Ms. Murray announcing the earmark THE DAY AFTER IT WAS ANNOUNCED that Microvision had lost in an “Army-staged evaluation” of it’s Nomad device.  That’s customer service.
• When Patty Murray was confronted, she was recorded as saying (in the segment) this about earmarks: “I see it as a way to make sure that the tax dollars that are spent are spent in a very wise way”.  I wish it was asked (or it was shown, if it was asked) what she knew about the Nomad and how $19.5 million for it was a good idea.  I have a feeling she doesn’t know the first thing about the device, and that hardly any of these legislators do when they give out a three thousand nine hundred dollars of taxpayer money to get, at least from what is disclosed, a single dollar for their own war chest.
• A boat-scandal that puts the Duke-Stir to shame.  Full article by David Heath here.

Now a few gems I’ve found from my own digging in that excellent Seattle Times database:

• Ron Paul (R-TX).  How does he manage to get re-elected?? $0 in earmarks dished out?  Only $5,930 in contributions received from 2001-2007?  Considering the size of his contributors (ie. Boeing Co., who benefited from $1.2 BILLION in earmarks, a full 10% of the total for the 2007 Defense Bill), you’d think they’d know better than to throw away even the paltry sum of $2,900 at Ron Paul.  That’s $11 million of earmarks they could have received from Patty Murray if they sent it her way.  That’s grounds for a shareholder revolt.
• John Murtha (D-PA, All-Star).  Like one of those high-class escort services, you are paying for the name when a shrewd shopper could find a similarly serviceable whore at a lower price.  As opposed to the several hundred to one thousand or so multiplier you usually get in earmark to contribution returns, John “The Refrigerator” Murtha demands a 1:38 contribution to earmark.  I guess it’s hard to convince someone to go with a cheaper alternative like off-brand Charles Dent (R-PA), who offers a 1:823 contribution to earmark payout ratio for the budget-conscience consumer.  In what must be a database error, Mr. Dent even provided a $1,000 rebate to Northrop Grumman.  Clearly Mr. Dent understands the pressures the economy is placing on the average consumer better than Mr. Murtha, but when all the other kids are wearing Murtha-earmarks, it’s hard not to feel pressured to wear the flashy Murtha branding.  And when I say ‘all the other kids’, I do mean ALL of them.  You can wear out a mousewheel scrolling through Murtha’s page.  A similar point can be made about his Republican neighbour, Arlen Specter (R-PA).  But at least Arlen provides a better return on your investment, at 1:817 and still all the name-recognition of a John Murtha.  Deal hunters take notice.
• And, let’s not forget my favorite target, the man I love to hate: Joseph “Bid On” Biden (D-DE).  Joe is batting 1000, with a perfect 1:1000 contribution to Defense Bill earmark payout ratio, making him an aesthetic achiever if not a performer on volume ($18,550,000 in earmarks for a man of his prominence is rather unexceptional).
• And how could I neglect our under-covered media darlings, the other Presidential/Vice-Presidential candidates that I don’t harbor any special odium for?  John “Maverick” McCain (R-AZ) is an utter disappointment and deadweight for his team during the 2007 Defense Bill.  I’m giving him back his ‘Maverick’ nick for this entry as a result.  I expect he and his cadre of lobbyists providing him with all his positions, vice presidential vetting, and (probably) sexual release will make it up in 2009-2016.  He lays a goose egg on $16,844 of contributions.  I hope they kept their receipt.  They might want to look at getting back store credit to be redeemed after 2009.  Otherwise they were better off spending the money on 1,127 HDDVD copies of Top Gun.
• Barack “Black Jesus” Obama (D-IL) shows his favour for academic (or sorta academic) institutions.  $3,300,000 of earmarks doled out for a fair, but not phenomenal, price of $97,250.  And two of the three recipients (the two ACTUAL academic institutions) provided no contributions in 2001-2007.  Must be a clerical error.  The Gas Technology Institute did get a 1:2600 return though.  Boxing day sale, maybe?
• Sarah “So Many Earmarks You’d Need to Carry Them in a” Palin (R-AL)?  Well, she’s a governor so she’s not in the database and it’s past 7:00am now, so you better not think I’m going to try to do my own research to uproot any new corruption or abuse of power she may have been involved in that has yet to come to light.  So just enjoy google’s analysis.

… and the cow goes moo