Posted on 10/17/2007 9:31:25 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
Three members of the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee have received an average of $102,600 in campaign contributions from employees and political action committees of the companies they’ve favored with earmarks in the first six months of 2007. The rest of the members of the subcommittee have netted collectively $180,000—an average of about $12,800 per member—from the beneficiaries of their earmarks.
While Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., the committee’s chairman, Rep. Jim Moran, D-Va., and Rep. Pete Visclosky, D-Ind., directed the bulk of their earmarks to companies whose employees and political action committees donated to their campaigns, their colleagues on the 17-member Defense Appropriations subcommittee requested earmarks for companies that, for the most part, contributed little or nothing to their campaigns, according to an analysis of earmark data provided by Taxpayers for Common Sense and an analysis campaign contribution data from the Center for Responsive Politics and the Federal Election Commission.
Reps. Murtha and Visclosky’s office did not return our phone calls and Rep. Moran’s office chose not to respond to our questions.
Murtha was tops among lawmakers both for directing some $166 million in taxpayer funds to 47 recipients and raking in $113,050 in donations from the companies that his earmarks funded. Moran was second in receiving contributions from beneficiaries of his earmarks, taking in $99,000. But when it came to sponsoring earmarks, Moran barely cracked the top ten, scoring some $41 million worth of earmarks.
Moran received contributions from 18 of the 27 firms for which he provided earmarks. Murtha got donations from 21 of 30 firms, and Rep. Pete Visclosky, D-Ind., received contributions from 11 of the 22 companies to which he doled out earmarks— $95,000 in all.
By contrast, Rep. Jack Kingston, R-Ga., who was the fifth most profligate defense earmarker, received just $6,000 from employees of two of the 12 companies that benefited from the $44 million in federal appropriations he directed. Rep. Nancy Kaptur, D-Ohio earmarked $44 million to 18 recipients and three of these companies have contributed, to date, $4,500 to her campaign committee. Kaptur’s contributions came from the University Hospitals of Cleveland, the Parametric Technology Corporation — a multi-national consulting company that provides software solutions to the Navy — and a much smaller company, Ares Inc., based in Port Clinton, Ohio.
Rep. David Obey, D-Wis., the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, sponsored 11 defense earmarks worth a total of $50 million; in the current election cycle, his campaign committees have received campaign contributions of $2,000 from just one company, McNally Industries.
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