Word: kirwan
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Ohio Democrat Michael Kirwan, floor manager for the measure, declared that "every dollar in this bill represents an investment in America, and the benefits come back to us a hundredfold." Members who ordinarily bang the economy drum loudly, including Arizona Republican John Rhodes (whose state benefits from a Western power-development project that gets $21,600,000 this year) and Mississippi Democrat Jamie Whitten (who could claim $4,000,000 for his state), extolled Kirwan. "I have come to love him," said Whitten, "and to appreciate his great contributions to our nation...
Last week Kirwan's annual public-works appropriations bill sailed through the House on a 354-to-25 vote. Not a dollar was put into or subtracted from the legislation as it was reported out by his Subcommittee on Public Works Appropriations. Since "Big Mike" likes to keep all House members happy, every state had at least one slice of bacon. But Kirwan was undisguisedly most elated about his own project. "This is going to be the greatest canal," he bragged, "in the history of mankind...
Roughhewn, Pennsylvania-born Michael Joseph Kirwan dropped out of school after the third grade and followed his coal miner father into the pits. Later, he worked on oil gushers, farms and railroads...
...Tank. In 1937, at the age of 50, Kirwan came to Washington from Youngstown, elected to the congressional seat once held by Presidents James Garfield and William McKinley. Despite his double negatives and other grammar gaps, he was re-elected 14 times, thereby earning enough seniority on the Appropriations Committee to become the House's undisputed Prince of Pork. Kirwan is never loath to combat a political foe by lidding his barrel. Four years ago, when Oregon's Senator Wayne Morse voted against a $10 million aquarium for the District of Columbia-a pet Kirwan project-Mike simply...
...both sides of the aisle (though every project in his bill must satisfy a cost-benefits formula established by the Army Corps of Engineers). His hackles rise at any suggestion that his subcommittee ever approves a boondoggle: "Name one project that won't stand the acid," he challenges. Kirwan views his work as nation building. "Unfortunately, men are selfish, they are just interested in taking care of themselves," he says. "We had better wake up and do what is necessary to preserve, protect and develop America...