King Of Pork Wins Again
The undisputed king of pork in the House has another championship trophy for his wall. Despite a game effort by Rep. Bill Young (R-FL), who actually got more earmarks into the upcoming defense appropriation bill, John Murtha outscored him on total dollars spent on protecting his incumbency. The King spent $150 million of our money on his pet projects:
Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), chairman of the House Appropriations defense panel, has secured the most earmarked dollars in the 2008 military spending bill, followed closely by the panel’s ranking member Rep. Bill Young (R-Fla.).Even though Young secured 52 earmarks, worth $117.2 million — and co-sponsored at least $27 million worth of others — Murtha’s 48 earmarks amount to a total of $150.5 million, according to a database compiled by the watchdog organization Taxpayers for Common Sense (TCS).
The House is expected to take up the $459.6 billion defense appropriations bill Friday. It contains 1,337 earmarks, costing $3.07 billion, which is less than half the number and value of earmarks in last year’s bill.
Ah, they don't really think that they can fool a Porkbuster, do they? The Democrats claimed that they had stripped all of the earmarks out of an earlier appropriation in the first weeks of the 110th, too. It turned out that they just wrote letters pressuring the agencies to spend the money on legislator's pet projects as if the earmarks existed in the bill.
The former chair of the Appropriations bill, Jerry Lewis (R-CA) won the Bronze Medal this time around. He has $95 million in earmarks, which qualifies him to be Murtha Lite -- all the arrogance with just two-thirds of the pork. The rest of Congress managed to get their share of the spoils as well; Nancy Pelosi has $37 million in earmarks, Steny Hoyer $26 million, and Norm Dicks (D-WA) got $44 million.
The King may have won another championship, but in this game, all the players win, regardless of party. It's a beautiful thing, baby .... unless you're a taxpayer. We're the only losers here.
UPDATE: Thanks to CQ commenter filistro for noticing that F-FL should have been R-FL.
Posted by Ed Morrissey on August 3, 2007 5:13 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)
Comments (6)
Posted by rgaye | August 3, 2007 5:45 AM
When the real finger pointing gets started on the bridge collapse, someone needs to remind ALL of them that if the dollar amount of the earmarks and waste at all levels of government, wasn't so outrageous perhaps there would be money in the budgets for properly maintaining infrastructure... you know like bridges and such.
Posted by Scott Malensek | August 3, 2007 6:18 AM
My Congressman is Tim Ryan (D). He represents the core of the Ohio Rustbelt from the PA border to Akron. He's also on the Appropriations Committee, and a Murtha follower. I wonder how much he got for our economically dead zone?
Posted by Glenmore | August 3, 2007 6:49 AM
Did Con. Ellison obtain any pork for his district? It would not be very seemly for a Muslim, would it? (I suspect he could make some political points for both Islam and fiscal responsibility/good government by taking advantage of that little quirk of idiom.)
Posted by the fly-man | August 3, 2007 7:13 AM
Capt'n Ed I think you might have the Fox denial syndrome. More suspect than coincidence, when there is a Republican, say like Mark Foley the Republican in question's party affiliation is somehow switched for the viewers. I think yours might be a Typo. Bill Young is a( R-Fl)
Posted by MarkD | August 3, 2007 8:00 AM
I think F-Fl is correct...
Posted by filistro | August 3, 2007 10:48 AM
Ed, it was fly-man, not I, who noticed that little kerrrr-fff-ufff-le.
All I know about Florida politics is that they are immensely entertaining (from a safe distance, of course :-)