You are here: Home » Political Pontifications » Our New Democratic Overlords » Murtha’s PMA Scandal is Our Fault

Murtha’s PMA Scandal is Our Fault

Jimmie | February 19, 2009 | Comments (0)

Just when you think you can’t be taken aback by political corruption, along comes another example to take your breath away.

More than 100 House members secured earmarks in a major spending bill for clients of a single lobbying firm — The PMA Group — known for its close ties to John P. Murtha , the congressman in charge of Pentagon appropriations.

“It shows you how good they were,” said Keith Ashdown, chief investigator at the watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense. “The sheer coordination of that would take an army to finish.”

PMA’s offices have been raided, and the firm closed its political action committee last week amid reports that the FBI is investigating possibly illegal campaign contributions to Murtha and other lawmakers.

The PMA Group has been one of Murtha’s pet corporations for a long time and it’s made out very well. It’s reaped tens of millions of dollars on an investment of, by my estimation, not even a million dollars in campaign contributions.

CQ’s article is very careful to note that both Democrats and Republicans have had their hand in that cookie jar. It’s a very good, and very objective, article. It’s fair, though, to note that the top five recipients of PMA’s donations and 14 of the top 15 were Democrats. This is not primarily a bipartisan scandal. Republicans were knee-deep in the corruption money bin but Democrats were doing the backstroke. Most of the money flowed from Democrats and they reaped the majority of the benefits.

But I’m not terribly interested in scalding either party here because this isn’t a Democrat vs Republican issue or even a political corruption issue. It’s a voter negligence issue. Here’s what I mean.

Ask yourself: how is it that any one legislator can send over $34 million to anyone? How did they get so much power that they could throw around more money in seven years than most professional athletes or heads of business make in that time without anyone raising any sort of fuss? That’s not the fault of either party. The fault there is ours.

It is shameful that we have allowed our government to get so large that the millions Murtha sent to PMA is only a minuscule fraction of his share of the Federal budget. I’m sure there will be a thousand outraged voices over the next couple days decrying earmarks and calling for the tar and feathers but the truth is that we’re the ones to blame.

I’m not saying we shouldn’t jump all over Murtha and Co. with both feet for being crooks of the highest order. We should heap as much shame on them as we can (not that it’ll do much to most of them) and we should run them out of office when they come up for re-election. That’s won’t solve the long-term problem. Let’s say we turn Murtha out in a couple of years. What’s to stop his replacement, who will control even more money each year than Murtha and will have face no more oversight, from doing the same thing? Could you resist wetting your beak if you had control of a shade under 6 billion dollars and only the barest hint of accountability for it?

I couldn’t. Heck, not even the Pope himself could.

Scandals like this will happen again so long as the size and scope of the Federal government remains gargantuan. The only way to rein in earmarks and the inevitable corruption they breed is to drastically shrink Washington’s budget.