general terms in the fine print of committee reports, and no specific offset can be linked directly to any specific earmark. 

To leave those traces would mean accountability.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------Endnotes:

[1] See Taxpayers for Common Sense analysis at http://www.taxpayer.net/search_by_category.php?action=view&proj_id=2602&category=National Security&type=Project.

[2] See the Thomas.loc.gov entry for this amendment at http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d111:SP01469:

[3] While the conventional wisdom is that newer weapons are cheaper to maintain, it is almost never the case.  The author has available official DOD data comparing new, complex aircraft maintenance and logistics costs to those of the aircraft they replace.  The data is available on request.

[4] The description of these budget tensions, the results, and the terminology are all borrowed from the work of Franklin C. Spinney, who authored many studies documenting these trends.  For example, see "Defense Death Spiral" at http://www.d-n-i.net/fcs/defense_death_spiral/contents.htm.

[5] See Senator Carl Levin floor speech, July 13, 2009, Congressional Record, p. S7384 at http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/F?r111:35:./temp/~r1114BDxsD:e0:

[6] Levin's remarks were the first time this author can recall any member of the Senate Armed Services Committee actually pointing out this much used pork funding mechanism.

[7] The four "defense committees" are the House and Senate Armed Services Committees and the Defense Subcommittees of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees.

[8] The grand total cuts in the O&M title of the bill was $2.004 billion.  See pp. 711-730 (Title XLII) of S. 1390.  Find the bill at http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=111_cong_bills&docid=f:s1390pcs.txt.pdf.  In addition, the SASC extracted $700 million out of an additional O&M account, the Overseas Contingency Operations supplemenary O&M account to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  This reduction came out of a Pakistan Counterinsurgency Capability Fund.

[9] To pay the entire $9 billion tab for the pork its members added, the SASC extracted many offsets throughout the bill.  For example, the committee took $818.5 million from Military Personnel and $660 million from Military Construction.  It is also important to note that although the Procurement and R&D accounts were increased by a net $1.4 billion and $1.3 billion respectively, those accounts also included many negative offsets (for example, a $200 million reduction in MQ-1 Predator UAV production in the Army Procurement account (justified in the committee report as to "avoid forward funding of production").

[10] See http://www.taxpayer.net/search_by_category.php?action=view&proj_id=2602&category=National Security&type=Project.

[11] See the O&M tables in the HAC Report, Department of Defense Appropriations Bill, 2010, Report, House Report 111-230, pp. 68-114.  Find the HAC Report at http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=111_cong_reports&docid=f:hr230.111.pdf.

[12] See TCS press release at http://www.taxpayer.net/search_by_category.php?action=view&proj_id=2698&category=National Security&type=Project.

[13] The HAC report shows this net reduction on p. 60.  That the SASC had 426 earmarks for $9 billion, while the HASC had 502 earmarks costing $2.26 billion and the HAC had 1,116 for $2.75 billion should be interpreted carefully.  The significant difference in the $9 billion SASC cost for earmarks and the $2+ billion cost of the HASC/HAC earmarks is explained mostly in the criteria the committees used in reporting their earmarks.  Specifically, the SASC counted as earmarks major program additions, such as Chambliss' $1.75 billion for his F-22s and $560 million added for 9 additional F-18 Navy fighter-bombers.  The House committees did not consider such major program adds to be earmarks and did not include them in their tallies of pork shown at the end of their committee reports.  Also, the significant difference in the number of earmarks per bill should be seen as mostly transitory.  When the committees resolve the differences in their bills in legislative conferences, the typical behavior is to simply add them all together.  The final definitive result will occur when the HAC and SAC conference their bills.  After the SAC moves its bill in September, the 1,116 earmarks sought by the HAC are sure to be increased.

[14] SASC Report, p. 114.

[15] See HASC report for HR 2647, pp. 282-283 at http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=111_cong_reports&docid=f:hr166.111.pdf.

[16] See HAC Report, pp. 74,79-80,82, 89-90, and 94-95.

[17] A copy of this product is available in pdf form upon request to the author.

[18] See p. 1 of the GAO letter available from the author.

[19] GAO described an "unobligated balance" as "the difference between the total appropriation amount and the total obligations."  Obligations are DOD commitments to pay for an expense.  See GAO letter footnote 3. 

[20] GAO letter, p. 2.

[21] See footnote 5, p. 2 of the GAO letter.  See also GAO, High Risk Series: An Update, GAO-09-271 (Washington, D.C.: Jan. 22, 2009).

[22] GAO responded to the author's inquiry about the study, as follows: "As you may know from your time at GAO, GAO periodically, at the request of Congress, performs budget justifications and reviews. These are in accordance with the yellow book and our budget analysis is performed as professional services other than audit (nonaudit)/technical assistance. This practice goes back from more than a decade and the Congress uses the information we provide along with other sources of information. We do not have visibility into all their data sources and all the factors they consider in making budget adjustments, including specifically how they use the information we provide. As professional services, our budget work is not subject to GAGAS but we do verify data is consistent with source documents and get agency views on our work. The objective of this budget work is to provide pertinent and timely information to the Congress for use in deliberations. This work contains no recommendations and is not released as a GAO product."  E-mail of August 5 from GAO Public Affairs representative to the author.

[23] See "House Memo: Army Unit Readiness for Iraq, Afghanistan Is Lagging," by Elaine Grossman,  Inside the Pentagon, July 6, 2006 at