I guess I just don't see the problem. It's a Defense Appropriations bill, so isn't it right that it should have defense spending projects on it? There's a Committee to determine how to spend the money, and it's doing it's job.

I don't understand.

If the earmarks are for legitimate defense spending, this is not a problem, but if they are earmarked for spending NOT related to defense. Let do some research and find out.

pelosi is in your list twice.

Of course they are for non defense spending. The last time, the defense bill had ear marks for spinach farmer and shrimp boaters.

Erick, you don't understand? They hide pet projects in a defense bill so that people that wouldn't ordinarily vote for the bill do vote for it so they get their payback. That is the problem.

These wouldn't be 'earmarks' if they were for defense spending. I GUARANTEE that most of these so-called earmarks are for things not even close to defense issues.

I agree with the pork-watching ideals expressed by most on this issue, but have discovered first-hand recently that at least a few - albeit perhaps a very few - of these earmarks are absolutely legitimate defense appropriations. Life would be simpler if we could paint with a broad brush - I'd be one of the first in line to do so - but life just isn't that simple.

Several of the names are listed more than once, with different quantities of earmark requests for each entry.
Example: Nancy Pelosi is near the top of the list with 15, but she's also near the bottom of the list with 1. So which is it? Pelosi with 15, or Pelosi with 15+1=16? This begs to question if there truly are 1776 total.

While the number of "earmarks" seems excessive, if you review the list, around 95% are designated for projects on military readiness, morale or research.

The current drain of the war in Iraq has caused huge shortfalls in infrastructure maintenance and research in the military budget.

There are a few items I don't understand... such as what is the Charles E. Kelly Relocation project and what does Prader-Willie syndrome have to do with the military. But overall, at a quick survey of the "earmarks", I don't see much out of the ordinary in a military budget.

What this makes me wonder, is that if we need these number of "earmarks" to get items into the budget, has the whole budget process gone haywire?

this is crazy. Danny Davis requested a "tricorder detector"...I don't believe those exist yet. We'll just have to go forward in time to borrow one from the Starship Enterprise.

Another issue often not considered even though they may be military related is that many of these are probably not wanted by the military, but are pet projects or favors paid back to the "home state" of the politician, or others of influence.
Donate to my campaign and I'll keep you employed type of venture; the scratching of backs so to say. Come election time it's always handy to say what jobs or business you have brought to the community as well, whether the armed forces needed the stuff/project or not.

Hi, is the bill posted online somewhere? If so, could you please provide the link? I'd like to see exactly what my rep is requesting. cheers

John S. is correct. If it had to be attached to the appropriations bill as an earmark, it almost undoubtedly is something that 1) is not asked for by the military, and 2) a pet (read that as graft) project for someone back home.

Note that Marty Meehan has 18 earmarks in this bill, and he resigned from Congress on July 1st! I guess his (unelected) staff is still trying to push the earmarks through.

Besides the duplicate names, Sen. Enzi is also listed with one earmark, even though he's in the Senate ;)

I've compiled the numbers into a spreadsheet and added each Rep's state in order to see the state-by-state breakout. You can view the spreadsheet at: http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pviE8jORCkXRSyyLov2R5Ew

If you look at the "House Members" page, you'll notice that most states have one or two members with an unusually high number of earmarks. Any ideas why that is? Do each of those members have military bases in their districts?

I also note that South Dakota has zero earmarks. Way to go SD!

(BTW, I was wrong about the Enzi listing. It looks like they misspelled Rep. Rick Renzi's last name. And that row is also a duplicate.)