Murtha Airport Bailout

[Lloyd Danforth]

MTPorcupine asked me to post this:

[KBCraig]

Dammit, Lloyd! you're just ruining it for the politicos who are trying to get along!

[jzacker]

I thought I'd tell a quick John Murtha story here.

I used to do Research & Development for a software company.  I came into contact with a small software shop in Johnstown, PA.  They had some interesting software and we were interested in partnering with them on some projects.

After they demonstrated their technology to me, I asked them what other products they developed.  They told me of a few, and then I asked, "Who are your customers?"  They looked at me and said, "We don't have any at the moment."  Then I asked, "Well who did you sell to in the past?"  They replied, "We have never found any buyers for our products."  Finally I asked, "Well, how do you stay in business?"  They responded, "We are in John Murtha's district.  We get Federal Funds to continue our work."  I chuckled and said, "So my tax dollars are paying your salaries?"  And they said, "Yup, we thank you for your support."  They did seem a little embarrassed by their situation.  One of them said that his area didn't have a lot of tech jobs.  He grew up in PA and loved it there.  He invited me to move there to see how wonderful it is in PA.  I politely declined.  I simply couldn't take a job like that.   But I wished him well.

Side note:  Some may think that because they were being federally subsidized, that they might not have incentive to do good work.  I think in this case, that is untrue.  These software developers and engineers were hard workers and did a nice job.  Unfortunately, we weren't able to come to an agreement and we went our separate ways.