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House of Murtha

Rep. John Murtha set the example for a controversial way of doing the people's business

Date published: 5/24/2009

REP. JOHN MURTHA has just what any old-school congress- man would want: He's got a district that could keep him in office until the day he dies. He's got a seat on the powerful House Appropriations Committee. And he's got the earmark system down to a science.

The Johnstown, Pa., Democrat does have his enemies, but few of them live and vote in his district. If you live in the 12th District, south of Pittsburgh, your job and quality of life are probably somehow linked to the hundreds of millions of dollars in federal earmarks Jack Murtha has brought home. From his point of view, this is precisely what the voters of his district have elected him 18 times to do.

He may not be immune, however, to revelations that his nephew Robert Murtha, a Johnstown defense contractor, has been the beneficiary of no-bid Pentagon contracts. Nor might he be able to shield himself from a congressional ethics probe shining light on his relationship with the defunct PMA Group, a defense-lobbying firm that sought to corral earmarks for its clients. PMA's founder, Paul Magliocchetti, was a longtime Murtha aide. The smell here isn't one of fine perfume.

Mr. Murtha is one of several entrenched members of Congress who measure political success by the bushels of bucks they provide their constituents. Earmarking is indeed a bipartisan affair. In the Senate, for example, six of the top 10 earmarkers are Republicans, but 12 of the top 20 are Democrats, according to research by the group Taxpayers for Common Sense.

Earmarks--between 8,000 and 9,000 of them, depending on whom you ask--accounted for $7.7 billion of the $410 billion omnibus spending bill passed earlier this spring. All earmarks don't necessarily represent wasteful spending, but their eleventh-hour attachment to huge spending measures bypasses any serious legislative scrutiny, and once the money is allocated to the nooks and crannies of America, tracking it becomes nearly impossible.


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Date published: 5/24/2009


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John Murtha is my representative. (posted by NeOublie , May 27, 2009 10:19 am)   
First let me say that I disagree with Mr Murtha frequently and don't vote for him, but I will defend him. Murtha is (at least has been) a conservative Democrat and has always recognized the deep religious roots in his district. Before the 12th district was gerrymandered Johnstown, PA was it's population center and it is heavily Catholic. Jack votes our way on abortion, on gun control and more. Johnstown was a steel town, in fact, it has been said by historian David McCull

Murtha Gets Rich with the Blood of our Military (posted by KorlaPundit , May 26, 2009 2:51 pm)   
Jack M. should be tarred and feathered, except working on such a scale would cause the extinction of several species of bird, and would increase our reliance on foreign tar. He earmarks all these millions and billions of dollars to faulty and fraudulent products and services that even the Pentagon doesn't want, and puts our military at risk for death and dismemberment, all to enrich himself, his family and his cronies. Get the RICO Act on his butt.

abscam jack murtha (posted by cassandra&sarasdaddy , May 24, 2009 8:22 am)   
the famous unindicted coconspirator. hows that lawsuit from the young marines he slandered going?

Mr. Murtha is a "bum" in my view. (posted by bhaas , May 24, 2009 6:31 am)   
Had the founding fathers even dreamed that their vision of a legislative branch of Government would evolve into the current version of corruption amongst the professional career office holders they would have written "term limits" squarely in the frontispiece of the Constitution.

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