Democrats Now Outpace Republicans in Wasteful Military Earmarks
For many years, those on the left have been able to make an easy presumption that, when it comes to military waste, the Republican Party is mostly to blame. For most of the time that George W. Bush was in office, the Republicans used the most hawkish language, and most stridently supported huge increases in military spending.
Was this difference due to an innate looseness with military budgets within the Republican ideology? It was tempting to think so, but another explanation is suggested by what happened after the Republicans lost control of the House and Senate in 2006.
A review of earmarks in the 2008 defense appropriations bill found that Republican members of Congress inserted about 304 million dollars in earmarks for military projects that the Pentagon never even asked for. However, Democrats in Congress inserted even more of these unrequested earmarks: 524 million dollars worth.
Military spending did not go down when Democrats took control of Congress. Between 2006 and 2008 - under the direction of congressional Democrats, military spending increased by 10 percent.
It seems that much of the Republican weight of responsibility for wasteful military spending over the last decade has been due to their control of Congress. The Democrats cannot be fairly described as having an inherent superiority in resistance to military waste. The taste for military pork barrel seems to be sadly bipartisan in nature.