On Oct. 1, after a critical vote on a $700 billion financial industry bailout package, Sen. Arlen Specter issued a two-paragraph statement explaining why he "reluctantly" voted, along with 73 colleagues, for the measure.

Before the year was over, a Delaware-based bank holding company that counts the senator's wife as a nearly decade-long director got a $45.2 million infusion from the bill.

The financial firm was Bancorp Inc., with operations in Delaware and Pennsylvania. Joan Specter has been a director of the firm or its predecessors since 1999, according to company filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Asked Tuesday for comment, Specter spokeswoman Kate Kelly issued a brief statement denying that the senator had any role in securing money for the financial institution.

Many questions about U.S. objectives in Afghanistan need to be answered before more American troops are sent there, U.S. Sen. Bob Casey Jr. said Monday.

Casey, in an interview with The Associated Press, said that both military and nonmilitary goals, including an exit strategy and humanitarian aid, should be fully scrutinized by Congress before more soldiers are mobilized. President Barack Obama this month announced the deployment of 17,000 additional U.S. forces.

''I don't think the administration can just say we need 17,000 and we're going to send them without a discussion of what's the rationale for it, how those troops will be used and what's the goal,'' the Pennsylvania Democrat said.

The Lehigh Valley area's U.S. House members secured $11.4 million in spending projects in 2008 for clients of the PMA Group, an embattled lobbying firm under investigation for possible illegal campaign contributions.

The "earmarks," compiled by the government watchdog Taxpayers for Common Sense, came as the five members -- Democrats Patrick Murphy, Allyson Schwartz, Tim Holden and Paul Kanjorski and Republican Jim Gerlach -- collected a combined $90,000 from the firm's political action committee and its employees and their family members in the 2007-2008 election cycle, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

They weren't alone. The firm, whose offices were raided by the FBI last year and plans to cease operations in March, according to reports, gave $3.3 million to House members through its PAC and contributions from employees and their family members between 2001 and 2008, Congressional Quarterly reported Thursday.

U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter paid another $17,178 in legal fees to Blank Rome last quarter in connection with a Federal Election Commission audit of his 2004 campaign.

That brings his total legal bill to above $100,000 as the campaign negotiates a settlement over the audit the FEC completed last year. Chances are Specter's campaign is in for a hefty fine.

The answer, according to the Senate's Democratic Policy Committee, is $258.8 million. That's a lot of weatherstripping.

The Senate Democratic Policy Committee has produced a pretty detailed analysis of just what Pennsylvanians can expect from the $787 billion stimulus bill, officially called the American Recovery and Investment Act of 2009.

Click thru to the Pennsylvania Avenue blog for more details...