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PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: Cleaver earmark puts into focus one peril of politics. U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cle?

By Glenn Reynolds

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: Cleaver earmark puts into focus one peril of politics.

U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver likes earmarks.

His rule: If they come to his district, federal funds are well worth wrangling over, especially for infrastructure repairs and nonprofit causes.

But how does an East Coast software company qualify for a Cleaver earmark?

For two years, the Kansas City Democrat has secured earmarks totaling about $2 million with the aim of supplying a south Kansas City defense plant the latest in design software technology.

What seemed to him an easy chance to bring home some bacon, however, turned into a lesson on why earmarks are so controversial and difficult to follow.

For starters, the local plant he sought to help ? the federally owned Honeywell Federal Manufacturing & Technologies Kansas City Plant ? never asked for the money, plant officials said. . . . In tracing the origins of one little earmark ? just a drop in a $7.7 billion bucket of pet projects earmarked in Congress? recent omnibus spending bill ? The Kansas City Star found that a lobbying group working for Massachusetts-based Parametric pushed for the funds.

That lobbyist, known as The PMA Group, is under federal investigation for its dealings with lawmakers. It was a major campaign donor to an Indiana congressman and others who served on the appropriations panel that signed off on Cleaver?s earmark.

Read the whole thing. And note the Visclosky connection.

Full post as published by Instapundit.com on May 10, 2009 (boomark / email).