Four months ago, in the dead of winter, we announced we would be releasing a comprehensive database of Congressional pork in the $391 billion defense appropriations bill in “a few weeks.” We were guilty of irrational exuberance. To be fair, we're not the only laggards in Washington: Congress hasn't managed to get all the spending bills done on time in years. But our database, which took six months of research and was finally released last week, was worth the wait. It is the most comprehensive breakdown of defense pork ever produced, and it paints a disturbing picture of how powerful lawmakers are using the defense budget as a vehicle for giveaways to parochial interests – to the detriment of our national security.

Not every congressional earmark is pork, but earmarks undergo no independent review, making it impossible to separate the wheat from the chaff (or in this case, the meat from the fat). Alas, the evidence suggests that most earmarks fall into the latter category. Despite congressional members' lofty rhetoric about putting our soldiers first, the earmarks they lavish on their districts are rarely related to current military operations.

This year, for example, legislators inserted $3.75 million for alcoholism research at the Gallo center in San Francisco, $110 million for two F-15s that the Pentagon did not request, $1 million for the eradication of brown tree snakes, $1.9 million for the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial Celebration, and $1 million for a biathlon trail upgrade at Fort Richardson, Alaska. It may seem like an eclectic mix, but there is a common denominator that explains the presence of every earmark in the bill: politics.

The recipe for any appropriations bill is simple. In the case of the defense spending bill, the Defense Subcommittee chair and ranking member always get first pickings. Next in line for the pork buffet are other Defense Subcommittee members, then Appropriations Committee members, and then everyone else, with preference given to party leaders.

This year's winners are no surprise: in the Senate version of the bill, Ted Stevens (R-AK), Appropriations Committee Chairman last year and Chairman of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, gets the third largest amount and easily tops the per capita rankings, with Hawaii, home of Defense Appropriations Subcommittee Ranking Member Daniel Inouye (D-HI), coming in a distant second. Thanks to Senator Stevens' hard work, every Alaskan 'earned' $694 and change, just on earmarks, in the defense bill alone.

Earmarking doesn't just cost money, it also undermines national security. Dozens of Pentagon readiness and maintenance accounts had their funding slashed to make room for congressional pork. Personnel and operations and maintenance accounts were slashed by more than $2.8 billion, including cuts to repair items, training, spare parts, weapons maintenance, and military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The military's ability to fight effectively is largely dependent on adequate funding in these accounts.

Our elected representatives like to talk about how they're supporting our armed forces, but the reality is that their extravagant spending habits are cutting into legitimate defense needs. If there's one bill that shouldn't be tainted by gimmicky accounting and parochial pork, it's the defense bill. In this Congress, it looks like nothing is sacred.