The "Pros" Of The Earmark Game

(CBS)  Software for fighter jets has helped make ProLogic a small business success.

The company might not exist without your tax dollars - it survives largely on federal contracts.

But ProLogic's business practices are getting attention - a lot of it - from the FBI, which is investigating whether it diverted public money for its own private profit … something the company denies, CBS News investigative correspondent Sharyl Attkisson reports.

Yet the matter of the FBI probe hasn't stopped ProLogic from getting at more of your tax dollars through earmarks, grants of money without the normal public review.

"There's a problem with earmarks in general because they're not subject to the checks and balances," said Ken Boehm of the National Legal and Policy Center. "But when you have a company that's under investigation because of some possible, uh, impropriety with federal funds, that just takes a bad policy situation and makes it far worse."

Prologic's success at earmarks might have something to do with all the money it invests in Washington: $880,000 on lobbying and $400,000 more in contributions to members of Congress, including those who control earmarks.

One of ProLogic's biggest boosters is Rep. Alan Mollohan, D-W.V. He used federal funds to set up a business center that got ProLogic started, and helps support them with earmarks.

Like the company he helped, Mollohan, too, is under federal investigations - for his earmarking practices.

Just how much of your tax dollars has ProLogic gotten? CBS News wanted to find out, but they wouldn't tell, or do an interview. So we dug into the new defense bill and found millions of dollars in earmarks from some of ProLogic's closest friends in Congress.

Five members of Congress who've received generous campaign donations from ProLogic interests found room in the tight federal budget to earmark millions in software contracts for ProLogic: $2.4 million each from Rep. Jack Kingston, R-Ga., and Rep. John Murtha D-Penn; $3.2 million from Rep. Peter Visclosk, D-Ind.

In all ProLogic got more than $10 million in special earmarks.

Not one of those Congressmen would talk to CBS News.

ProLogic referred Attkisson to an industry spokesman, who says even companies under investigation deserve earmarks.

"As Americans we operate under a principle of innocence until proven guilty," said Stan Soloway.

---

Read more about the story on Couric & Co. blog.
Check out ProLogic's campaign contributions here.

---

The earmarking isn't illegal and ProLogic isn't alone. Defense contractor BAE, another big campaign contributor, says it's done nothing wrong but is in the midst of a bribery probe. Nevertheless, members of Congress requested $44 million dollars in new earmarks for BAE.

"It says to me that the games continue on Capitol Hill," Boehm said.

In this version, companies can pass "go" and collect earmarks even while under investigation. It's a game where nobody loses except, perhaps, taxpayers.

[antoniof123]

I am going to say this if its not one Republicans then it is another Democrat get the hangman''s nose out and hang them all.

No wonder why we hate politicians.

[likeitis5050]

The very people we put into Congress are smugly raking it in for their own benefit...why, I don''t know. They act like they won''t be in office long, so make hay while the sun shines! However, the biggest crooks have been re-elected time and again.

Apparently no one really cares if someone is a crook, so long as they are sharing the booty with the ones who elect them. These people aren''t electing themselves. Corporations are buying votes and p.issing on the consumer as an after thought. To get rid of these crooks will require giving them the boot at election time...no matter how much they claim to love their voters. We owe no allegance to people who sell us out...whether they are elected or created by those we elect. We''ve gotten too big to really track all the corruption to stop it before it gives birth.

We just need to overhaul the entire system...starting with getting rid of anyone who has been in office more than one term. As a rule, it''s not wise to throw the baby out with the bath water...but there are exceptions to every good rule.

[prinzowhales]

On September 10, 2001 and Secretary D. Rumsfeld admitted that $2.3 TRILLION was missing from DoD accounts...CBS examines chicken feed while theives feast on flocks of chicken!...The very next day was 9-11...and all interest in the missing trillions disappeared faster than the evidence from the crime scene in New York and Washington could be trucked away.

[undermyboot]

Identify a big contributor. Find a program for them to do. Get the program earmarked. Send the money off. Hope to get something useful back when the program is over.

OR

Identify a public need. Find the best company or government agency to do it most cost effectively. Fund the program. Monitor the program to ensure the taxpayer gets the most for their money.

We need more of the latter.

[bm6005]

Let''s cut the party C R A P!! The azzholes are using it as a smokescreen. All of CONgress is criminal. Somebody limber up the Guillotine!!

[bm6005]

It''s revolution time!!! Vote out all incumbents at their next reelection. Start over. I''d rather have an honest bricklayer than a lawyer in public office!!!!

[Renegade.Rivers]

For far too long, we Americans have allowed the two party system in America distract us from the real facts. It''s not the just the Democrats, it''s not just the Republicans, it''s all of them, yet we elect them as our leaders and wonder why we get the kind of results we do. They are nearly all crooks and it doesn''t take a lot of research to figure that out. Once you realize that then you will begin to realize that there are just as many in one party as they are in the other.

[Renegade.Rivers]

Has it gotten more prevalent, or has it just been more in your face than it once was is hard to say. Every once in a while the American people get a tidbit of news on this congressman or that senator, but most of the time that is a political ploy. You got to wonder who the someone that they pi$$ed off, in order for the investigation to even take root. Someone said, "Show me a politician that isn''t a crook, and I will show you one that just hasn''t got caught."

Another writer once said, "Money changes hands faster in Washington, than water running out of a bathroom faucet." There is no doubt there is more dollars involved today, than there was a hundred or a hundred and fifty years ago, but then a thousand dollars was like a hundred thousand today, and some of those scandals involved hundreds of thousand of dollars, which by today''s standards, would at the very least be millions today.

It seems to me that there is at the very least faults in our system of government, because first of all to many things are classified as "secret" or beyond, and never revealed to the American public. Millions and even at times billions of dollars are allowed to be controlled by a small group of individuals, who are allowed to dole those monies out, with little if any oversight. Don''t we the the taxpayers deserve the right to have some oversight and some expectations about how our tax dollars are spent?

[Renegade.Rivers]

Wow! What a BAD news day for the DNC!

I''''M LOVING IT!
--------------------------------------------------------
Posted by DemWatcher

I sorry to tell you but you are so wrong, its not a bad day for the DNC, its a bad day for the American taxpayer, and these same bad days have been going on for longer than most of you can remember.

Someone suggested it started after the Kennedy Administration, but a closer look will tell you that it was happening long before then. As far back as the Grant Administration, the industrial complex, and the railroads were grabbing huge chunks of government dollars, and using them for self interest projects. Senators and Congressmen were the driving force behind the westward expansion, and the annihilation of the Indians in the American west. After which they bought, nay stole, thousands of acres of land to raise cattle on, and mine the natural resources they found there.

I am sorry but anyone that has fooled themselves into believing that honesty in Washington, and the state capitals has just take a turn for the worse over the past 50 years, better think again, the chicanery and the double-dealing that has been going on in our capitals has been going on from near, if not from, the inception of the United States. Read some history, its all there in black and white.

[Renegade.Rivers]

Our government is corrupt to the core and feeding us to the lions as we natter mindlessly on about politicians haircuts and Britney''''s breakdowns with the corporate media cheerleading us all the way to oblivion.

Posted by WogerWabbi

Well said, but most won''t never hear you. They are to busy discussing what ever desert the MSM has given them to ponder away the day. Untold thousands of Americans have no idea who even represents them in government, they are just too distracted. They get up at the crack of dawn, and head off to work, they listen to their favorite FM station on the way to and from work to relax a bit, get home, grab a beer, a drink or what ever, clean up, eat a bite, grab another beer, sit down in front of the TV for an hour or two, watching what everyone at the office is talking about, and sometimes fall asleep before its over. Then its the same thing all over again tomorrow.

Many of those who do have the ability to search the net, and read about what is really going on, instead find other ways to wallow away their time.

If they do come to a site like this, they see the how many of the contributors fight like cats and dogs, and argue over some of the most irrelevant issues, and never get to the roots of the problem. It is truly a case of not being able to see the trees for the forest.