Posted on 04/04/2012 8:48:25 AM PDT by bkopto
The Murtha Airport in Johnstown, Pa., is a prime example of taxpayer spending that refuses to die. Representative John Murtha steered some 150 million of taxpayer dollars to this eponymous airport over the last decade and despite the fact he died more than a year ago, the money keeps on coming.
Three years ago, we first visited the tiny airport, and found a monument to pork barrel spending: An airport with a $7 million air traffic control tower, $14 million hanger, and $18 million runway big enough to land any airplane in North America. For most of the day, the only thing this airport doesn't have is airplanes.
We flew there on one of three flights that arrive there daily, all of them from Washington D.C. About half the cost of every ticket, $100, is paid by American taxpayers, a subsidy Congress voted to renew just this past February.
The place had a shiny new luggage carousel, a state of the art tower, and some very bored air traffic controllers -- but very few passengers. The place is a tribute to the power of its namesake; everything from the reinforced runway to the radar facility to the new terminal, are all thanks to Democratic Congressman John Murtha, who died more than a year.
But the taxpayer subsidies that made his airport possible continue to flow. Since our visit, the Murtha airport has received from the federal government $559,476 in stimulus funds to rehab a back-up runway, $82,551 for air guidance signs, $226,638 to improve the taxiway, $19,412 wildlife hazard assessments, $95,950 and $62,325 to install weather reporting.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
What I think/I’d like to say/really needs saying, isn’t printable here, so I won’t do it.
I thought this crap was supposed to stop . . . what with Boner in charge of congressional spending . . . And we're not supposed to worry about Mittens Romney getting into the White House to rubber stamp this crap each and every day?
My God . . . what are we taxpayers supposed to do? . . . Why didn't Bonehead stop this right there in congress . . . or was he playing golf with the muslim interloper who lives in our White House?
Did Santorum support or oppose Murtha’s earmarks that built the airport??
I dunno - just asking?
Wow.
Murtha airport ping.
I live only 30 miles from there and had no idea. I figured it was like our own tiny Jimmy Stewart airport here in Indiana County. Quinn has talked about the Murtha airport a lot.
The airport? Hell, the entire city of Johnstown has been living on Federal largesse brought home by John Murtha (and little else) ever since those 10,000 mill workers were placed on waivers back in 1977.
Now that Murtha has assumed room temperature, and his former district is being recut into the greater Pittsburgh area, look for Johnstown to quickly empty out and become Ghosttown in the near future.
HF
I understand he still intends to vote this year.
Murtha - the man who was serendipitously exonerated because he held out for a bigger bribe! There you go - the US Congress - a den of thieves.
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