This week the rubber met the road, from a federal spending perspective, in the House of Representatives. The bill that actually funds all the programs in the Pentagon was debated, amendments offered, and votes held.

First, let’s give some credit where it’s due: The House of Representatives actually held a debate on the bill. And even though it isn’t under “regular order” in which members can offer any amendment during that debate, the Rules Committee considered more than 100 amendments and made 75 of them “in order” allowing debate and votes on those amendments. Amazing, huh? When the majority party in the House actually wants a bill to pass, they can force the system to work.

This bill, the Fiscal Year 2017 Department of Defense Appropriations bill, represents more than half of the total federal discretionary budget. The total dollar figure is $576 billion when you add up the so-called “base” budget and the roughly $35 billion in the off-budget warfighting account known as the Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) slush fund, err, account. (And don’t get us started on the accounting shenanigans that led to the Committee shifting $16 billion from OCO funds to pay for base budget items. The original Pentagon request was for $51 billion in OCO.)

When we’re talking about that much money, there are clearly areas in which wasteful funding can be cut without neglecting national security or putting service men and women in harm’s way. So, we were pleased to support lawmakers’ amendments that focused on some of that wasteful spending.

In a sequel to a successful effort last summer, Reps. Jared Huffman (D-CA) and Tom McClintock (R-CA) targeted a provision requiring the Air Force to ship anthracite coal to heat U.S. defense installations in Kaiserslautern, Germany. We gave the Congress our “Golden Fleece” award last year for keeping this decades-old provision, which was first offered by a corrupt and disgraced former Member of Congress, alive since 1973. The dynamic legislative duo thought they had killed this for good last year, but the House Appropriations Committee had other ideas and resurrected the provision in this year’s bill. Not to be deterred, Huffman and McClintock went after it again and won resoundingly again! Here’s hoping that puts a final stake through the heart of this vampire.

A second, successful amendment to control spending was offered by Rep. Martha McSally (R-AZ). This amendment limits the Pentagon from using money to have military bands and singing groups perform in an “official capacity” at non-official social events such as dinners and dances.

Altogether, these two amendments don’t save much money out of the massive Pentagon budget. But you have to start somewhere, and if we can’t cut these silly or potentially corrupt uses of taxpayer dollars, what can we cut?

Unfortunately, the Congress continues to balk at other ways to ensure every dollar spent at the Pentagon promotes greater national security. Exhibit A: An amendment by Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-TX) that would have struck a provision in the bill keeping the Pentagon from “proposing, planning, or executing” a new round of base closures. Really, the Pentagon can’t even propose to do such a thing? Talk about the thought police! Even though the Pentagon supported this amendment, the House defeated it.

Representatives Mark Sanford (R-SC), Dave Brat (R-VA) and Alcee Hastings (D-FL.) led another bipartisan amendment to get at a new, protectionist provision. They wanted to allow new military recruits to continue using a stipend to purchase athletic shoes from the manufacturer of their choice, striking a new provision requiring recruits to have shoes that were made in America with exclusively American content. A little research reveals the only athletic shoes currently meeting that standard are made by New Balance in Massachusetts. Would you be surprised to learn this provision was included in the Pentagon policy bill by a Representative from Massachusetts?  No? We weren’t either. Unfortunately, the protectionist forces in the House prevailed and the amendment to strike this new provision failed.

Also, an amendment offered by Representatives Mike Quigley (D-IL), Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), John Garamendi (D-CA), Jared Polis (D-CO) and Adam Smith (D-WA) was defeated. This amendment attempted to cut $76 million from a new nuclear capable missile, the Long Range Standoff Weapon. The amendment would have devoted that money to deficit reduction instead.

Finally, an amendment offered by Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-SC) failed. It would simply have required the Pentagon to spend money in its warfighting OCO account according to provisions set forth in the United States Code. Really? Evidently Congress doesn’t even respect the laws as they’re currently written. Sad, but no longer surprising as lawmakers look for ways to lard up the Pentagon budget without breaking the caps established in last year’s Bipartisan Budget Act. Just because the OCO account is “off-budget” doesn’t mean that isn’t real money being spent and adding to the deficit.

And that was your House of Representatives at work this week. Some wins, some losses. We’ll take the wins and we’ll keep fighting against whatever wasteful spending practices we find in the Pentagon.