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Just a day after the Washington Post reported Rep. John Murtha had secured more than $200 million in federal funding in the past decade for his eponymous airport in Johnstown, Pa., the influential Democrat announced he had earmarked $3 billion in the 2010 federal budget for a deep-water port in his home district.
The John P. Murtha Johnstown-Cambria County Airport, which has a state of the art radar system, control tower, and mechanical baggage carousel in a clean, modern terminal, is so well run that it sometimes has a staff-to-passenger ratio of 2-to-1, and U.S. taxpayers pay only $147 in subsidy for each passenger who passes through the terminal.
Rep. Murtha hopes build on the success of the airport to make Johnstown an internationally-popular seaport for cargo vessels, military ships and cruise lines. The earmark text calls for construction of a half-mile wide, 100-foot deep seaway from coastal Newport News, Virginia, 350 miles northwest to the Johnstown suburb of Ferndale.
“Jack Murtha is a visionary,” said a spokesman for the airport. “Who else could imagine battleships, and oil tankers and the Love Boat docking right down there at the big bend in the Stony Creek River. But then again, who would have dreamed that an area with so few air travelers would ever get such a wizbang airport.”
The $3 billion in funding during the first year will go mostly to site design and consulting fees paid to several firms staffed by some of Mr. Murtha’s most faithful campaign contributors.
“The good news for the American taxpayer,” said Rep. Murtha, “is that I know these contractors personally, so you don’t have to worry about the quality of their work, or especially about their loyalty. These guys are solid Americans.”
Examiner Columnist Scott Ott is editor-in-chief of ScrappleFace.com, the world’s leading family-friendly news satire source.
