Officially, the purpose of the measure is to provide much-needed funds for the war on terror in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as additional relief funds for Gulf Coast reconstruction. For pork-barreling politicians, such legislative measures are like beehives to hungry bears: They simply cannot resist the opportunity to dip deep into the honey pot of tax dollars in the federal treasury.
So, the emergency spending bill includes an earmark pushed by Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss., that directs $500 million to Northrop Grumman. The Mississippi politico is chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee. The giant defense contractor operates a Naval facility in Cochran’s home state, which was, of course, hit hard by Hurricane Katrina. So hard, in fact, that Northrop Grumman has been negotiating with its insurers for a final payout to cover the Naval facility’s “business disruption” costs covered by the insurer.
But then along comes Cochran, who inserts an earmark into the emergency spending bill that directs the Navy to pay Northrop Grumman $500 million in advance of any settlement the company eventually concludes with its insurer.
The funds would come from the $2.7 billion Congress has appropriated for damages incurred during Hurricane Katrina. No wonder Judd Legum, writing at the blog ThinkProgress (www.thinkprogress.org), says Cochran views the emergency appropriation measure as “just another opportunity to bring home the bacon.”
And why do we bring this $500 million worth of pork to your attention? For two reasons: First, Cochran’s taste for pork could establish a dangerous precedent whereby insurers could simply avoid or deny settlement, secure in the knowledge that the policy-holder can always turn to the government for reimbursement (no matter that the terms of Cochran’s earmark require the Navy to be repaid by the defense contractor once a settlement is completed with the insurer). That is why the Pentagon’s Defense Contract Management Agency is strongly opposed to the Cochran earmark, calling it “inappropriate.”
Second, Northrop Grumman made a tidy $30 billion in revenues last year.
Clearly this is not a cash-strapped company desperately in need of an infusion of greenbacks to stay afloat. Indeed, Northrop Grumman is one of the world’s most advanced technological powerhouses, as evidenced by such products as the B-2 stealth bomber.
Cochran’s $500 million amendment was part of a blizzard of provisions added by members of the Senate Budget Committee last week during its markup of the emergency spending bill. CongressDaily estimated that the bill’s total cost spiraled upward at a rate of $80 million per minute during the two-hour markup session. This is a vivid display of the culture of corruption spawned by the explosion of spending earmarks in Congress in the past five years.
It’s time to put old bull appropriators like Cochran out to pasture for good.
