Defense Earmarks--An Anecdote:
A while back, I met someone at a party, an engineer, who told me he worked for a defense contractor that thrives on earmarks. As he described it, so far none of the products he'd worked on was actually being used, and many of them didn't even work. He told me that two things happen after an earmarked project gets underway: either no one pays attention, in which case the company never bothers to finish a working prototype, but gets paid anyway once the paperwork gets filled out, or someone actually monitors the project, in which case a (barely) working, but useless, prototype is built that sits on a shelf somewhere because the Pentagon didn't want it to begin with. Not suprisingly, this engineer wasn't enjoying his job and was actively seeking employment elsewhere.
The big caveat is that this was just "cocktail party" conversation, I can't vouch for the accuracy of the anecdote, and I don't even remember the guy's name, or exactly where I met him. But as criticism earmarks continues to resonate, I can't help thinking about the possibility that we're spending who-knows-how-much money a year on defense earmarks for completely useless products, and that whole companies are thriving on this basis.
Gerg:
Sure sounds consistent with this description of an "incubator for earmarks" from this article:
Republican Rep. John Campbell, an Orange County, Calif., auto dealer and five-year state legislator who is serving his first full year in Congress, is a rare ally of Flake. Campbell began the debate by challenging a $2 million no-bid award to the Sherwin-Williams paint company for a "paint shield" against "microbial threats." The Pentagon did not want this, but Murtha delivered his usual contemptuous retort on earmarks: "We don't apologize for them because we think the members know as much about what goes on their district . . . as [do] the bureaucrats in the Defense Department."
Flake then forced votes on Murtha pet projects — starting with "something called the Concurrent Technologies Corp." in Johnstown. In the brief time at his disposal, Flake tried to explain to an inattentive House how the company survives as an "incubator" for earmarks "just by getting more earmarks." He next challenged a $39 million earmark for the National Drug Intelligence Center in Johnstown, which the Pentagon does not need or want. Murtha was coldly dismissive, denying the reality that these no-bid awards do not allow taxpayers to recapture any benefits that the corporations derive from federal expenditures.
volokh.com
Gideon Kanner (mail):
This problem has nothing to do with defense as such; it's universal. Like Asimov's first law of robotics that trumps all else, the first law of Congresspersonhood requires a transfer of as many dollars as possible from the US Treasury to the Congressperson's home district or state. Nothing else comes close as a motivating factor. And as federal funding has become a pervasive fact of life, and bids fair to expand to subsidize anything and everything you can image (and some things you can't) the problem can only grow worse. Gravina Island bridge anyone? The Big Dig? The Los Angeles Intercontinental Airport? The Los Angeles Belmont Educational Center? The new NY Stock Exchange Building? Etc. etc.
8.13.2007 12:23pm
volokh.com |
