Rep. Norm Dicks, the honorable gentleman from Boeing

WASHINGTON — Maybe this whole outsourcing thing has gone too far. Last week, House Democrats indicated they have plans to contract out the federal government's spending to Boeing.

Specifically, they are planning to outsource it to Mr. Boeing, aka Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Boeing, a Washington state lawmaker who has received tens of thousands dollars in campaign contributions from Boeing sources and is — by complete coincidence, of course — trying to direct tens of billions of dollars of government business to the military contractor. Now, with the just-announced retirement of Rep. David Obey, D-Wis., Democrats are sending strong signals that he will be replaced as chairman of the House Appropriations Committee by Dicks, the next in line — giving the honorable gentleman from Boeing broad control of about $1.4 trillion in annual discretionary spending.

It's an odd message the Democrats are sending: Return us to power and we'll return to business as usual. Dicks has survived a House ethics probe related to influence peddling; he was cleared even though his contributors indicated that they believed their contributions would influence his actions. In recent weeks, he's been accused of what Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., calls "brazenly inappropriate behavior" in bullying competitors from bidding against Boeing for a $40 billion Pentagon contract. Dicks' office says that it was a "unique case" and that Dicks isn't uniformly pro-Boeing.

To be sure, such behavior makes Dicks a hero at home, where Boeing is the state's biggest employer. And here in the nation's capital, he's hardly the only one who does business this way. That's the problem. Dicks, like the late John Murtha, the man who preceded him as chairman of the defense appropriations subcommittee, is merely one symbol of a culture in which campaign cash often appears to trump the national interest.

Dicks himself realized the perception problem and joined House Democrats this year in a temporary, partial ban on pet-project "earmarks" for the current Congress. But Democrats' willingness to promote Dicks (who opposes an outright ban) suggests that gesture was less than sincere.

Dicks has accepted $142,250 from Boeing since 1989, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, part of more than $700,000 from defense industries. Boeing and others have given tens of thousands more to a political-action committee Dicks runs. And that's just a fraction of the overall support for Dicks. The Seattle Times reported that Dicks was named as an honoree by donors who gave $478,000 to charities supported by him in the first half of 2008 alone.

At the same time, Dicks, one of the top 10 House earmarkers, has directed $134 million in federal earmarks to favorite projects in the last three years, according to Taxpayers for Common Sense, which doesn't include the earmarks he made with other lawmakers.

Is there a quid pro quo? House ethics investigators looking into the now-defunct PMA Group, a lobbying outfit that gave generously to Dicks and others on his subcommittee, found that Dicks got $56,000 in PMA-related contributions in the two most recent election cycles. During the same period, PMA clients were awarded earmarks requested by Dicks worth nearly $20 million.

The investigators found evidence that businesses "believe that a political donation to the Member has an impact on the Member's decision to author an earmark."

Mr. Boeing's explanation: "He does not review FEC filings to determine who has contributed," the investigators reported. "He explained that he had not been in a competitive race since 1982, and therefore, he did not have to spend his time fundraising." Dicks was cleared.

The scandal, as columnist Michael Kinsley has said, is what's legal.

What Dicks did for PMA clients is small change compared with what he's done for Boeing. He's been working for a decade on getting the company the huge contract for aerial refueling tankers. After the Air Force accepted a cheaper bid in 2008 from Northrop Grumman and EADS, the parent company of Airbus, Dicks went on a campaign to reverse the decision. "Give it to Boeing," he demanded, according to Politico.

That's just what is likely to happen. Congressional investigators found flaws in the bidding, and the contract was rebid. Northrop, the deck stacked against it, pulled out. EADS tried to find another partner, but Dicks publicly warned American companies against helping EADS. "I would hope that they wouldn't," he told The Hill newspaper.

The American companies quickly obeyed Mr. Boeing and ended talks with EADS. They know what the rest of the country could learn if Dicks gets his promotion: What's good for Boeing is good for the country.