The Corruption of Democrat Leadership Exposed
The Washington Post, Sunday April 19th 2009
Under the page 1 heading: “Murtha’s Earmarks Keep Airport Aloft” The Post’s Carol D. Leonnig*, engages in an admirable exposition of Jack Murtha’s corrupt abuse of power in his wasting of taxpayer money in an ongoing and boldfaced vote-buying scheme in the classic “bringing home the bacon” mold. Leonnig’s 48-column-inch-exposé outlines the over-improved boondoggle that is the John P. Murtha Johnstown-Cambria Airport.
“The key to the airport’s gleaming facilities – and, indeed, its continued existence – is $200 million in federal funds in the past decade and the powerful patron who steered most of that money here”
Leonnig goes on to describe the many clearly unjustified expenditures including a full-scale mechanical baggage-claim carousel which handles a few dozen bags on a busy day, an $8 million dollar Digital Surveillance Radar system which goes unmanned, $17.8 million to upgrade an asphalt runway with a steel reinforced concrete to serve larger planes that do not use the airport, a $14 million dollar hanger for Marine helicopters which had to be moved to the airport from an existing facility and a $6.8 million dollar upgraded control tower which was added in 1999 despite declining passenger volume. Leonnig details how the airport’s passenger volume fell below a “federal threshold” for funding and its “minimum yearly funding was about to drop from $1 million to $150,000, [then] Murtha stepped in.”
Not surprisingly Mr. Obama’s “stimulus” was the vehicle that restored the airports funding and Mr. Murtha’s vote-buying boondoggle. Now many people would suspect that Murtha would be furious at this coverage and that Leonnig should be keeping her alternative employment options open, but don’t be fooled, the Post editorial staff knows that coverage of this type is at worst a double-edged-sword and in the eyes of most hack politicians like Murtha - well - they love it. “Oh the slings & arrows of outrageous reporting” meanwhile, the back-slapping and lines like “old Jack really brought home the bacon for ya” will fly at the local level and “what a price he is paying to put bread on the local table!” “Why those nasty right-wingers at the Washington Post must have it out for your protector old Jack Murtha.” And in local retail politics this kind of OPM (other people’s money) goes over very well.
“Mr. Murtha’s been a godsend to this airport, no question about it.” said airport manager Scott Voelker who took over the job nine months ago. “The economy’s been bad since the steel mills pulled out. He [Murtha] has a vision for developing this airport and using it to bring businesses into our community.”
He has a vision all right; Murtha being introduced on the re-election loop “and when some federal agency said your local airport here in {insert name of tonight’s location} should be de-funded, it took the seniority and pull of a member of the Democratic leadership to restore that funding – ladies and gentlemen I give you your representative in Washington Jack Murtha!” – wild applause.
The problem is that hundreds of million of dollars sunk in a White Elephant airport is hundreds of millions of dollars which did not go into bio-medical research, high-tech manufacturing or some other venture which would generate a profit and thus provide real and productive economic growth and long-term employment for people in Pennsylvania or other places around the country. The basic problem is that no matter how wasteful quick-fix, feel good, government-make-work expenditures are, they play well in a short term vote-getting strategy that keeps the loop of more of other-peoples-money = more votes = more seniority in Congress = more of other-people’s-money = more votes…ad infinitum – or perhaps not.
The loop can be disrupted by two things;
First, with all that money going buy (from taxpayers → into rat-holes) people like Murtha begin to believe that they are entitled to a cut. You may remember Murtha, new in congress in the 1980’s, was offered cash in a video tapped FBI sting - and he didn’t turn it down – he was just a bit too cagey and said; “we’ll do business later”. Therefore, now; enter Murtha’s brother (the bag man) “working” for defense lobbyists who just happen be former Murtha staffers and who represent companies which would like to be included on Murtha’s appropriations list (read: “other-people’s-money” list). When the flow of cash from taxpayers into Murtha’s pockets becomes too obvious, the locals, who have been living with a shinny airport and a “vision” for development (no actual development) will begin to catch on. “Why that old Jack Murtha is getting fat while we are getting the crumbs”…time for a new boss.
Second, is a much bigger bump in the road. While Murtha’s been “bringing home the bacon” for his Pennsylvania district, he has done so by swapping votes with other members of Congress’s and supporting their pet vote-buying projects. So while the good residents of the Johnstown-Cambria area thought they were getting ahead, on nice fat slice of other people’s money, they missed the fact old Jack Murtha was running up quite a credit card bill in their name (known as the national debt - $10 trill and on the way up!). He did so under G.H.W.Bush, Clinton, and then G.W.Bush. The problem is that the other-people’s money loop is a Ponzi Scheme which, as Mr. Madoff has shown, can come to a rough-end, at least for the investors – or in Murtha’s case, the taxpayers. But Madoff proved that when the money’s flow’n, things in the Ponzi biz are cool. It’s only when a sharp downturn comes that people need some of the I.O.U.’s which can then not be fulfilled, that things get ugly. The problem for local Johnstown-Cambria area is that they’ve been con’d or perhaps co-opted, by Murtha’s “vision” and ready cash (other people’s cash). But what happens when everybody in the country is living on the Democrat’s “vision” of economic development? What is the outcome when the money in thousands of White Elephants has resulted in no investment in real plant & equipment, in actually needed productive capacity, in profitable self-sustaining industries which will result in greater capacity and real employment and that little thing called “economic growth”? You see the Democrats are actually very bad at math. The root of Democrats’ bad math goes to the simple dis-understanding of the reason why we humans are not still cave dwellers. When Mr. Cave man had killed a big beast, he used the extra meat to sustain himself while he planted some seeds, which grew into crops, some of which he saved to plant for future crops and the time he saved looking for food he built himself a hut and during the winter (inside his nifty hut) he made some farming tools for next years farming which resulted in a bigger crop - all that saved time and saved seeds - we gave a name; investment! The effects of having a hut and tools which lasted several seasons we now call; economic growth! A simple mathematical equation for this “growth” is 2 + 2 = 5. Add a few millennia and old John Murtha is calling the John P. Murtha Johnston-Cambria Airport an “investment”. The only problem is that the airport is mostly useless and the money spent was wasted because its real purpose was to buy votes (which it apparently does) but it does not facilitate any economic growth. In cave man’s terms; next year’s crop will be smaller, not larger, and the math looks like 2 + 2 = 3 or maybe 2.5.
So when the entire country, or a meaningful portion of it, is living on Democrat “visions” of White Elephant inspired growth and not enough people are employed to keep the other-people’s-money-pump going, we a get a little thing called a $2 trillion dollar deficit. Remember, the Ponzi Scheme is based on we keeping the balls in the air, not paying too many I.O.U.’s and getting lots of new money in. If one studies the history of Ponzi Schemes, one will discover a frantic effort to bring in money just as the whole thing collapses. Now comes BO and his block buster “stimulus” (which includes the extra money for Murtha’s airport and a thousand other vote-buying, shovel-ready, rat-holes) and then his block-buster budget (more Democrat “visions”) and some other behemoth I.O.U.’s - like baby boomer Medicare and Social Security – wow, who would have thought? And there you have it; the formula for upsetting Mr. Murtha’s re-election loop – picture Timmy Geithner with his pockets turned inside-out and his shoulders shrugged up in a pose that says “ain’t-got-no-more-money-man”. USA bankrupt - game over.
Of course we know that this can’t happen. Why these smart people in New York and Washington all know that this can’t happen – you know the types – the ones who invested with that clever Bernie Madoff.
* Julie Tate and Alice Crites contributed to Ms. Leonnig’s story in the Washington Post.
Todd Zirkle
Chairman, Freedom’s Defense Fund
