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It was recently revealed that John Murtha‘s nephew Robert Murtha’s company received about $4 million in no-bid (or sole bid) contracts. Given that John Murtha has considerable political clout, there are suspicions that he used his influence in order to get these contracts for his relative. The reporter who broke the story said that when she went to the business, she found no one there-thus raising suspicions about what is going on.
John Murtha has quite a history of pork, including the most recent pork incident involving an airport. Given his alleged fondness for pork, it would hardly be shocking if he tossed some chops to a relative. However, it is important to note that there is no evidence of wrongdoing. At this point, it is a matter of speculation based on fairly limited evidence.
Naturally, helping a family member need not be anything wrong. We, obviously enough, have a special relationship with our family and we should look out for their well being. For example, if a relative of mine applied for a job at FAMU, I would help him through the process and make sure that everything went smoothly. So, if Murtha merely helped his nephew through the process of securing contracts by giving advice based on his own experience and telling him what snags he might run into, then that would be fine .
However, it would be wrong to cross over from legitimate family help into the realm of nepotism and corruption. For example, while I would do more for a family member applying at FAMU than I would for a stranger, it would be unethical of me to try to interfere with the legitimate hiring process. Likewise, if Murtha used his influence in illegitimate ways to get those contracts for his nephew, then he was acting unethically. If so, he needs to be punished for his misdeed. Of course, he has a great deal of influence and his party is in power-so the likelihood that anything significant will happen to him is fairly low. After all, he has kept the pork flowing in a time when Obama has said that he will put and end to it.
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I’ve got three words for you. Bud Shuster. Republican.
For nearly thirty years Bud was head of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. Like Murtha, he brought home the bacon and was rewarded by his constituents. Shuster was investigated in 1996 for corruption. His son, Bill, filled his seat in 2001 and is currently working his way up on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.
Shuster, meet Murtha. Murtha, meet Shuster. In the southwestern quadrant of PA these two porksters from opposing parties operated for “years” in adjoining counties (One county Murtha represents is Cambria County–of airport fame; Shuster brought his constituents Interstate 99.)
Shuster, meet Murtha. Meet voting public. Meet pork. Meet corruption. We get the pork we pay for. . .
That is a heap of Midwestern pork.
Agreed. Can we agree to be against the corruption and pork from both parties?
Two words. Term Limits. I have little doubt that an amendment to limit terms in Congress and the Senate would help eliminate the powers of lobbyists, the occurrences of cronyism and nepotism , and corruption in general in our government.
As you know there have many amendments proposed over the years,
http://www.usconstitution.net/constamprop.html
some good and some bad, and most dealing wish issues better handled by Congress or the states.
Can an amendment make it through? Read Article V and note how difficult it would be to work around Congress. Could our politically polar state governments ever come together to do the one best thing they could do to get this country back on track? Color me skeptical.
Term limits would help, to a degree. After all, much of the pork power comes from building up influence and digging in deep (like a tick, perhaps).
Of course, people argue that term limits would keep people with valuable experience out of office. Also, people argue that it takes time to build up the political connections that are needed to do the job.
Michael
The experience issue was argued at the time of the writing of the Constitution. It’s an important point, yet, in hindsight, it’s easy to see that almost from the beginning it has been used by some to protect some very corrupt politicians and the corrupt system they live for. Still it’s one of the hardest claims to argue against.
When you think about it, most office holders build strong “political connections” while they’re running for office. Presidents, whom we limit to eight years in office, for example, seem to be able to accrue more than enough political and corporate cronies and connections by the time they reach their final political destination. I’m sure that legislators do, to. It would be interesting, no doubt, to do a study to see just how much more efficient—in the good, pro-country-pro-electorate sense– legislators become after one, two, three, four, five terms in office.At each stage, are they better at legislating or just better at bringing in the pork? Or, heaven forbid, might the study prove that to be a good legislator one must also be a good pork-slinger? Perhaps, just perhaps, the time needed to build legislative experience is also used by legislators to make corrupt connections, etc. Too cynical?
There’s another aspect of the argument: Perhaps office-seekers wouldn’t seek office if they thought they couldn’t access the maximum power and money that goes with the office. It’s an honest argument that takes into account at least a few of the Seven Deadly Sins that all men are susceptible to. Because of human nature, I personally don’t believe too many politicians who claim they’re running for office because they want to serve their country. And, of course, “if” this is a valid point, then we’re screwed because a/Most office seekers will likely be money-and-power-hungry ( and also prone to pride and lust) and b/ If we enforce term limits we may not be able to fill elected offices with any but small-minded men who will be more than pleased to get whatever money and power and exposure they can in the short time new term limits might permit.
True, the experience argument is probably the best one. After all, we would not want people in most other professions to retire after eight years. For example, I think I have gotten vastly better as a professor through experience. If professors had to quit after 8 years, then education would be worse. Obviously there are some professors whose departure would improve education, but they are more of an exception.
It might be the case that a good legislator is also good at slinging the pork. After all, the skill sets are the same. The difference lies in what is done with the skills. But, as I noted above, what is pork and what is not can be debated in an honest manner. For example, if a bill gave lots of money to my university, some might see it as pork. But, enhancing education would be good for the country in general, so it would seem to be non-pork.
I suspect that if people knew that the time in office was strictly limited, then the typical politician would be less inclined to run for office. Of course, they could try to get around it by either holding other offices or building up a base they can exploit while out of office. For example, although the president only gets 2 terms, he can set himself up for life.
I thought things were changing in Washington. Less pork and more transparency. Huh.