So, I crunched the numbers of the PMA defense budget earmarks (raw info found here), and came up with something interesting. Below are the top twenty current House members who have taken money from PMA and placed earmarks in that bill, sorted by cumulative donations. A “#” represents being on the Defense Appropriations Committee at the time, and Republicans are bolded:
| Requesting Member | Total Credited | PMA campaign $ since 2001 |
| Peter J. Visclosky# | $23,800,000 | $219,000 |
| John P. Murtha# | $34,105,000 | $143,600 |
| James P. Moran# | $10,800,000 | $125,250 |
| Norm Dicks# | $12,130,000 | $91,600 |
| Bill Pascrell Jr. | $2,400,000 | $73,200 |
| Mike Doyle | $1,600,000 | $69,400 |
| Loretta Sanchez | $3,200,000 | $60,118 |
| Tim Holden | $3,200,000 | $57,275 |
| Tim Ryan | $1,000,000 | $54,250 |
| Michael E. Capuano | $2,800,000 | $54,000 |
| Chet Edwards | $6,040,000 | $48,734 |
| Silvestre Reyes | $800,000 | $42,300 |
| Christopher Carney | $5,900,000 | $38,500 |
| Paul E. Kanjorski | $4,800,000 | $37,150 |
| Jerry Lewis | $8,000,000 | $34,649 |
| Marcy Kaptur# | $1,600,000 | $34,500 |
| Carolyn McCarthy | $1,000,000 | $31,500 |
| Patrick J. Murphy | $1,600,000 | $29,250 |
| Rodney Frelinghuysen# | $7,300,000 | $29,129 |
| Ander Crenshaw | $1,000,000 | $27,300 |
So, basically, of the top twenty recipients of PMA’s largess that are still in the House, seventeen are Democrats (combined total of about 133 million in earmarks, 1.3 million in contributions). The first current Republican shows up at #16 (there was one Republican in the top ten, but he’s actually gone now, and thus beyond my ability to spank). Of the top thirty (about 185 million in earmarks, 1.5 million in contributions), twenty-two are Democrats. also note that six members of the committee (five Democrats) are in the top twenty, and ten are in the top thirty (six Democrats).
Don’t get me wrong: I’d prefer that the list was zero Republicans, period. But PMA knew which people to hand out the serious money to, and they overwhelmingly had Ds after their names. And, hey, it looks like they got good value, too? Wall Street would kill and eat pandas live on the Disney Channel to get that kind of ROI…
Moe Lane
PS: PMA is going out of business. Gee. I wonder why?
Crossposted to RedState.
Moe
Check out THIS and then THIS, then check JJohn Pugliese and Jon Walkers’ occupations and contributions. They track almost exactly with your spread sheet.
Two Americas, I’m telling you. Two effing Americas.
Yes but Moe, they are sham donors.
I know. That’s one of the things that the people in the Other America consider to be one of the perks.
Moe,
The resource you used actually understates Rep. Tim Holden’s earmarks to PMA clients because it details only those to current clients for FY 2008 and overlooks those which continued in FY 2008 to former PMA clients.
A Valley Technologies earmark for FY 2008 ($1.6 million) was only the latest of a series which began in FY2003 when Valley still retained PMA, and a year or two AFTER the Valley/PMA contributions to Holden began. Valley’s take currently exceeds $10 million over six years. Even though they stopped paying PMA during that period the family who own this tiny business continued to pay Holden. Holden’s earmarks to the two firms now total about $15 million over six years.
What’s most interesting about the Fidelity and Valley earmarks is that both are spent outside Holden’s district, Fidelity is in Reading, PA (Gerlach) and Valley operations are in State College (formerly Peterson). USASpending.gov records clearly show that all Valley Tech spending was in State College. In the absence of a direct benefit to Holden’s district, the appearance of quid pro quo is pretty compelling.
Holden’s PMA Group contributions are a bit understated, also. Perhaps a PMA name or two was missed. His total take from PMA, when combined with donations from owners/management of the two companies, exceeds $130,000 since 2001.
He’s bought and paid for…