PMA Case Highlights Pay-to-Play System in Defense Appropriations, ACR Report Finds

Recent campaign finance scandals involving senior Members of Congress and Cabinet appointees shed light on the entrenched system of pay-to-play politics and wasteful government spending under the law, according to a new report by the nonpartisan group Americans for Campaign Reform. The FBI raid this week of the offices of the lobbying group PMA, on charges it used campaign contributions to Rep. John Murtha (D-VA) and other members of the Defense Appropriations Committee to win hundreds of millions of dollars in earmark appropriations for its clients, is a case in point. The report, "Money in Politics and Government Waste," finds that PMA's practices represent business as usual within Congress's powerful appropriations committees.

"Far from one bad apple, PMA exemplifies a system of 'pay-to-politics' in Washington that is out of control and out of touch with the needs of taxpaying Americans. Our research traces the steady rise in federal earmark appropriations and targeted campaign contributions from earmark recipients--a misuse of taxpayer money to reward wealthy contributors rather than promote the public interest," said Dan Weeks, president of Americans for Campaign Reform.

Key findings include:

• The number and amount of earmarks closely followed the rise of campaign contributions for federal elections from 1998 to 2006. As campaign contributions to members of Congress roughly doubled from $750 million to $1.4 billion during this period, earmark spending rose sharply from $28 billion in 1998 to $47 billion in 2006.
• The top ten recipients of defense industry earmarks last year spent an average of $2.7 million each in federal campaign contributions from 2003-2008 and spent an average of $4.9 million to lobby federal officials last year.
• Those same top-ten firms received an average of $88 million in earmarks in 2008, or $13 for every $1 invested in Washington.
• The top five Senators and Representatives requesting defense earmarks in 2008 received an average of $259,573 and $699,935, respectively in campaign contributions from industry earmark recipients.

"If Congress is to check the abuses in earmarks, it will need to address the root of problem--namely politicians' dependence on large campaign contributions from private interest groups to win and keep their seats," Weeks said. "The financial incentives for wasteful earmarking today are too great. Only by severing the link between special interest money and elected officials through Fair Elections campaign finance reform can we restore integrity to the appropriations process and reduce wasteful spending."

The Fair Elections Now Act, slated for introduction by Senators Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Arlen Specter (R-PA) in March, would establish a citizen-driven alternative to federal campaign finance. Under the proposed law, qualifying candidates who raise only small donations from their constituents would receive competitive matching funds to run for public office. A similar measure introduced by Senators Russ Feingold (D-WI) and Susan Collins (R-ME) would update the longstanding public funding system for presidential elections.

Americans for Campaign Reform, the bipartisan group led by former Senators Bill Bradley, Bob Kerrey, Warren Rudman, and Al Simpson, is working with Members of Congress, concerned citizens, and national allies from the Sierra Club and the National Council of Churches to the League of Women Voters and the NAACP to advance the Fair Elections Now Act in 2009. "Money in Politics and Government Waste" is part of a series of ACR reports tracking the influence of major campaign contributions on the policy making process.

The full report can be viewed online at http://youstreet.org/sites/default/files/Money in Politics and Earmarks Fact Sheet Final.pdf