it needs to "save" and the staff writes provisions to come to that exact amount. 

These General Provisions amount to another $950 million cut from O&M. 

There are more.  Congress adds numerous pork projects in the General Provisions title, "earmarked" to the O&M account, but no new money is added to pay for them.  Thus, DOD must reduce other O&M programs to pay for them.  In this year's bill, these O&M "earmarks" in General Provisions add up to $268 million.[9] 

The total of Congress' additional cuts to the O&M budget from General Provisions comes to $1.2 billion.[10]

In General Provisions, Congress also takes some more whacks at the Procurement and R&D accounts.  An annual favorite is "revised economic assumptions."  Procurement is reduced by $264 million; R&D by $312 million (and per above, O&M is reduced by $195 million).  These cuts are justified by revised estimates of future inflation.  (They are not adjustments based on inflation rates that actually occur; they simply replace one prediction into the future with another.)  They are a perennial exercise, and for unexplained reasons, when the new predictions foresee higher inflation, or when actual inflation data arrives to compare to past predictions, adjustments are not made.

The author counts an additional $874 million in earmarks, transfers, and cuts specified in General Provisions, bringing the grand total of reductions specified in this title to $2.1 billion.

Grand Total and Why?

All in all, the reductions and/or transfers in all the titles of the peacetime parts of the bill (e.g. the unobligated balance "savings" in Military Personnel and the depot maintenance reductions in O&M) come to a grand total of  $8.3 billion.  Add to that, the many projects that Congress added to the bill without adding the money to pay for them (thus, forcing DOD to make additional reductions to finance the projects), and add to that any gimmicks and devices this author was unable to uncover, and the total will come to something approximating $16 billion.

That's how you add up to $12 billion in pork projects while simultaneously reducing the apparent total of the bill by the $4.4 billion advertised by the Senate Appropriations Committee.[11]  Recall, however, that no such amount was "saved."  Instead, much of the asserted savings were, in reality, transfers to Title IX, where the money can be added but not "scored."

It's a well-cloaked set of dodges allowing Congress to add spending, mostly for pork, while advertising its bill as saving money.  Worse, as members tout their patriotism and their heartfelt support for the troops on the battlefield, they simultaneously raid the very accounts that pay for training, weapons maintenance, and other wartime readiness to pay for the pork the same members cram into the bill. 

And, so far at least, no one is the wiser.

# # #

[1] The totals for each title cited here do not include the one percent across the board cut enacted by Division B of the 2006 DOD Appropriations Act.  That reduction is discussed in "Defense Budget Tutorial #1."

[2] There will be additional discussion of such "pork" projects in the next "Defense Budget Tutorial."  For an extended discussion of the congressional pork process, see the author's book "The Wastrels of Defense," especially the chapters entitled "Confessional of a Pork Processor" and "Pork Lows and Highs."

[3] For example, see one of five press releases offered by Sen. Hilary Clinton, D-N.Y., on spending she touted as added for western New York state at http://clinton.senate.gov/news/statements/details.cfm?id=249989 .

[4] See "Conferees Approve FY 2006 Defense Spending Bill," U.S. Senate Committee on Appropriations,  Press Release, Dec. 17, 2005, p. 1.

[5] When alerted by the author of a $250 million reduction in Army training in the peacetime part of the bill, a conscientious House staffer called the Appropriations Committee to ask why the money was eliminated.  He was told that the money was not cut but transferred to Title IX.  When asked where the money was moved to, the appropriations committee staffer responded it was in an account labeled "Rapid Fielding Initiative; Force Protection; IBA," all budget activities that have little, if anything, to do with training. The appropriations committee staffer provided no further information; it is impossible to tell whether and how much peacetime training money was moved to this Title IX account, or whether, in truth, the money was reduced, or even eliminated, thereby reducing Army training in a time a war, an action the politically sensitive appropriations committee staff would be hesitant to admit. 

[6] There are scores of Government Accountability Office and DOD Inspector General reports since the 1970s documenting DOD's horrendous record on financial management.

[7] Statement of Administration Policy, Office of Management and Budget, June 16, 2005, H.R. 2863 - Department of Defense Appropriations bill, FY 2006, p. 2.

[8] Congress does not permit these cuts to impact the unrequested projects it adds to the O&M account for member's states and districts.  Those "congressional interest items" can only be cut if specifically requested by DOD and the request is explicitly approved by the Appropriations Committees.

[9] There are hundreds more of these "earmarks" added in the O&M title; there also, new money is not added to pay for them, and DOD must "eat" the cost.

[10] Added to the other reductions and transfers directed from within the O&M account, and discussed earlier, the grand total reduction to O&M appears to be $5.4 billion.

[11] For example, see Senate Committee on Appropriations press release, op. cit., p. 1.