John Murtha: “It breaks my heart to think Marines did something like this. And when you hear some of the stories now that are coming…”

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…

Let me just mention to the gentleman, 85 of the 90 members of the RSC receive, RSC which you just mentioned, receive earmarks in this total of this $436 million.

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…

You can see the hearings we've had on this issue. We felt that the missile defense cuts we made were because of schedule more than anything else, and I appreciate your determination to put it in. We'll take another look at conference, but…