Congressional Charity Is Disgrace

Both through shoddy products and overpriced ones that may nudge out more valuable defense spending, earmarks place our troops and our national security at risk.

Murtha and other congressmen and senators are damaging more than our troops and national security. They are also damaging the underpinnings and public support for charitable endeavors.

Today’s Washington Post runs a front-pager on Congressman John Murtha’s favorite charity, his reelection via earmarks to his district, “Millions in Earmarks Purchase Little of Use.” The focus is The National Defense Center for Environmental Excellence, in Murtha’s Johnstown, PA, affiliated with Murtha’s other creation Concurrent Technologies. Read the article for details, and read the Wall Street Journal’s more detailed expose, “MURTHA INC.: How Lawmaker Rebuilt
Hometown on Earmarks.” Noel Sheppard at Newsbusters also has a useful summary of Murtha’s earmark history.

This is most blatant by Murtha but also commonplace throughout defense spending and the rest of the federal budget. The Seattle Times reports how this abuse of earmarks has spread:

Mobilisa is one of a new breed of companies sustained by lawmakers handing them government contracts through line-item appropriations known as earmarks.

These companies make their sales pitch not to experts in places like the Pentagon but to lawmakers and their staff in the halls of Congress. The startups rely on dollars from taxpayers rather than from venture capitalists who demand a cut of profits. All the while, company executives usually give campaign donations to lawmakers….

That puzzles competitors, who describe the company's technology as dated and overpriced….

A very interesting part of the WP’s article is that Senator Charles Grassley, long a foe of charitable abuses, is trying to bring more attention to Murtha’s charity.

Concurrent's relationship with the Pentagon has come under scrutiny by lawmakers and the Pentagon's inspector general since the publication of articles by The Post. The most recent inquiry began this month by Sen. Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the ranking Republican on the Finance Committee, who wants to know why Concurrent is a tax-exempt charity.

"It's fair to ask whether this company is serving a legitimate charitable purpose, and whether the taxpayers are getting a fair return on their investment," Grassley said in a statement….

Concurrent spokeswoman Mary Bevan said she had no comment about the center and referred a reporter to the Army. Bevan defended Concurrent's non-profit status, saying "we perform scientific research and development."

"We don't claim to be a charity," she said. "We're not the United Way."

Documents filed by Concurrent with the Internal Revenue Service show it is registered as a tax-exempt charitable organization.

"Something is very wrong here. Why is the government pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into a contractor whose work it isn't using?" said Danielle Brian, executive director of the Project on Government Oversight, a nonprofit watchdog group in the District that has examined defense spending over the years.

The NDCEE came about as a result of federal environmental legislation in 1990 that mandated wide-ranging pollution prevention efforts by the government.

It’s a difficult matter for the government to investigate entities claiming charitable status, as many fear the brush may be too harsh or wide. On the other hand, the number of 501 (c) organizations is ballooning, partly due to the tax code’s overly broad definitions and lax enforcement, growing from 1-million such orgs in 1996 to almost 1.5 million in 2006. In 1990, there were only 200,000 charitable organizations registered with the IRS.

The Independent Sector, an association of major charities, testified last May to Congress, “Crucial to fulfilling our missions is our ability to demonstrate to our stakeholders…that we operate ethically and accountably.”

The same might be said for Congress.