2009 Defense Authorization: 603 earmarks worth $5 billion

The funding table identifies 603 earmarks worth just under $5 billion, where the House version of the bill contained 539 earmarks worth nearly $10 billion and the Senate 435 worth $5.2 billion. HIstorically, the conference version of spending and authorization bills generally add the requests together, and the large number of earmarks with both House and Senate sponsors bring the total down. The 2009 bill lists only 23 shared earmarks, however, meaning hundreds of projects were eliminated. Most of these appear to be small items such as military construction projects, but some big-ticket items also fell by the wayside, such as a $2 billion earmark for the C-17 Globemaster sponsored by several members of the House.

Major earmarks that made the cut include $523 million for the F-22A Raptor, $496 million for two LPD-17 ships and $300 million for a Virginia Class submarine. The table notably disclosed a $247.5 million earmark for a Joint Strike Fighter alternate engine, a program the Senate failed to disclose as an earmark last year.

The haste with which the tables were composed, however, means names of earmarks often differed significantly between funding and disclosure tables (see our the complete database).

This information was obtained from Taxpayer’s for Common Sense.

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