Hightower Lowdown

"Never try to teach manners to a pig," advises an old country saying. "It wastes your time, and it annoys the pig."

The same could be said of trying to teach basic ethics to our Congress critters. Among the worst misbehavers are some senior members of the appropriations committees, both Republicans and Democrats. They have a bad habit of taking campaign contributions from corporations, then slipping special grants of taxpayer money--called "earmarks"--to those very same corporations.

Consider the case of PMA, a powerhouse lobbying firm that specializes in getting lucrative earmarks for corporations doing business with the Pentagon. In March 2008, PMA's clients and lobbyists gave nearly $50,000 to Rep. Pete Visclosky, an Indiana Democrat who sits on the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense. One week later, Pete requested $14 million in earmarks for PMA's clients.

Let's see--$50,000 in, $14 million out. Wow, what a sweet deal for the corporations, lobbyists, and Visclosky. For us taxpayers and advocates for good manners, however--hmmm, not so sweet.

The House Ethics Committee investigated and concluded, "Simply because a member sponsors an earmark for an entity that also happens to be a campaign contributor does not, on these two facts alone, support a claim that a member's actions are being influenced by campaign contributions."

Thank God this committee isn't running the fire department. It'd say, "Go back to sleep--smoke and flames don't prove there's a fire." More on earmarks at Common Cause: www.commoncause.org.