they form a congressional patronage. they ll be with us for a very long time. marty, you covered for the times all those years. these guys are promising on their word, they ll get rid of it. everybody else is saying, no more earmarks. it will be clean living by senators from now on. john boehner has never taken an earmark in his entire career in the house. he s never had had an earmark and is determined to end earmarks in the house. in the senate, the senate has taken a vote to continue earmarks. it will be quite interesting to see what happens when the senate passes earmarks and the house wants to ban them. susan, a lot of republicans are scared to death they re going to be tea partied, getting primaried by somebody to their right. isn t that going to scare them? i think it s going to scare them but it shouldn t. they re already using words like
because it was an earmark. usan and martin, experts of the question that may drive you crazy if you drive the book. the title of the book is pinstripe patronage. as we know know, beyond the white house. when we return, let me finish with the president s smart move, bringing in a top flight coo, chief operating officer. you re watching hardball only on msnbc. [ female announcer ] does your hair color feel as healthy as it looks? it will with natural instincts. it s clinically proven. 80% of women agreed that natural instincts made their hair feel softer. want feel good color? get 10 minute natural instincts. it s all good.
would take 200 people from a little island off alaska on to the mainland. it would have been very nice for those 200 people. but many people question whether it was worth 443 million. that s one of the things that made earmarks famous. because it was an earmark. usan and martin, experts of the question that may drive you crazy if you drive the book. the title of the book is pinstripe patronage. as we know know, beyond the white house. when we return, let me finish with the president s smart move, bringing in a top flight coo, chief operating officer. you re watching hardball only on msnbc. i needed a coach. our doctor was great, but with so many tough decisions i felt lost. unitedhealthcare offered us a specially trained rn who helped us weigh and understand all our options. for me cancer was as scary as a fastball is to some of these kids.
it s okay if your crony is good. but in this case, his crony was bad. bush sa polls went way down after that. patronage can be very dangerous. martin, to sell your book, give me the worst case of patronage you ve come across in your years of tutelage on the is study. well, it s hard to choose. but one of the worst was john murtha, who is the chairman of the defense subcommittee of the appropriations committee sent tens of millions of dollars to the john murtha airport in johnstown, pennsylvania, used by 30 people a day. that is sort of egregious. but i had a wealth of material to choose from. do you know what the bridge to nowhere was? yes. the bring to nowhere cost $443 million and if built it
letter marking and other kinds of words. soon, they ll be called liberty projects. we ll see earmarks for a long time. let s talk about patronage. marty, we all grew up tip o neill, my old boss, would give away things. when the snow fell, you would get eight bucks an hour to shovel snow. is that ever going to go away, that kind of patronage? it will never go away. now it is expanded. now the recipient, the political supporters, want big bucks. in addition to the snow buttons and the low-level jobs, blue collar jobs, pin stripe patronage goes to people more at home in the boardroom than on the assembly line. it includes huge contracts for