Congressman John Campbell's Blog - Green Eyeshade Blog

Thursday, September 20, 2007

Posted by: John Campbell at 5:08 PM

A recent report highlighted some interesting information on both earmarks and campaign contributions. Rep. John Murtha (D-PA), who is the chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, directed $114.5 million in earmarks to 26 private entities. All 26 of the entities contributed to Rep. Murtha's campaign totaling $413,250 since the beginning of 2005 with $100,750 of these contributions coming in the 2 weeks before the March 16th deadline to file earmark requests.

Rep. Norm Dicks (D-WA) is also on the Defense subcommittee and also received campaign contributions from every private entity he directed an earmark to and Rep. Bud Cramer (D-AL) received campaign contributions from 15 of the 16 private entities he directed earmarks to.

On the Republican side of the Appropriations committee, Rep. Bill Young (FL) who is the ranking member on the Defense Subcommittee received campaign contributions from 28 of the 30 groups he directed earmarks to and Rep. David Hobson (OH) received campaign contributions from 11 of the 14 private entities he directed earmarks to.

I will let you draw your own conclusions.

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S.E. TEX writes:	Thursday, September, 20, 2007 8:34 PM
Payola earmarks
It doesn't matter whether they are sponsored by a republican or a democrat, these payola earmarks are obscene and need to be eliminated.
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Grumpy writes:	Thursday, September, 20, 2007 8:42 PM
And teh Congressional Ethics Commitee
Is where, exactly?
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justpaul writes:	Friday, September, 21, 2007 9:14 AM
Conclusions
What other conclusion can one draw beyond that John McCain was right when he said that every member of Congress has been corrupted by the system they put in place? These people aren't even buying votes anymore. They are buying campaign cash, with our money.
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krause writes:	Friday, September, 21, 2007 11:07 AM
Contributions>earmarks
Textbook quid quo pro.
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Zeppo007 writes:	Friday, September, 21, 2007 6:50 PM
Questions (rhetorical, of course)
Norman Hsu gave Hillary Clinton $850,000 just to have his picture taken with her? Implies a "willing suspension of disbelief", don't you think?
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Dona261 writes:	Monday, September, 24, 2007 3:30 PM
Democrats
are going to be so surprised to find how badly they blew it--if the voting public will just read about this.
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celdd writes:	Monday, September, 24, 2007 6:53 PM
Another shocking earmark
Although not big in relationship to the budget, David Vitter R-LA (yes, that one) has an earmark for $100,000 to a religious organization (Louisiana Family Forum) whose purpose is to get creationism taught in public schools. Religion should be taught in church or religion classes, NOT in science class. It is obscene for our tax dollars going to support an anti-science religious agenda. In addition, Mr. Vitter hired two of the principles of this organization as "consultants" for his last campaign. Surprisingly, they supported Vitter during his recent scandal. Here is a link for more information: http://blog.nola.com/times-picayune/2007/09/vitter_earmarked_federal_money.html
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About John Campbell

John Campbell is a member of the House Financial Services Committee, and has taken a leadership role in addressing the country's top economic issues. Campbell serves as a member of the Joint Economic Committee, and House Committee on the Budget. He has a Bachelor's Degree in Economics from UCLA and a Master's Degree in Taxation from USC.