Tom Coburn: “this is an amendment which we know is needed. We have seen it through the conviction of a Member of Congress. What this…”

“this is an amendment which we know is needed. We have seen it through the conviction of a Member of Congress. What this does is require an analysis of the total cost of earmarks and the effectiveness of each in meeting the goals of the Department of Defense. Earmarks are consuming a growing proportion of the Defense funding. The number of earmarks in the appropriation laws has grown from 587 in the Department of Defense in 1994 to 2,847 in 2006. The amount of money earmarked has increased over the same period from $4.2 billion to $9.4 billion. The amount earmarked as a percentage of the total Defense budget has risen to 2.4 percent in 2006. It is my belief that earmarks are siphoning away funds from other national security priorities. Last year, the White House Office of Management and Budget wrote to the House Appropriations Committee warning that the hundreds of millions of dollars set aside for congressional pork projects would be slashed from a Pentagon program designed to fill some military desk jobs with civilians and would thereby limit one of the Defense Department's most productive initiatives for reducing the strain on our Armed Forces and free up critically needed troops for the global war on terror.…”