John Murtha: “With the appointment of Defense and Interior Ministers, we should be able to substantially reduce our presence in Iraq…”

Every one of these earmarks are competitively granted under the regulations of the Defense Department. We depend on them to competitively check them over, and they do.

But I think in light of the recession and the economic difficulties we are facing it is not a good idea to pass legislation driving American industrial production back to the levels of 1920 at a time of potentially an economic depression.

This is a very worthwhile project. Let me say to the gentleman, you see the number of hearings we have had, and the number of earmarks. Our staff went over every one of these earmarks very carefully. It's not on our highest priority list…

Let me mention to the gentleman, we have a $459 billion bill. We look at every one. We ask the Members to vet them. Our staff vets them. We go over every single earmark. We don't apologize for them because we think the Members know as much…