That may well be the rallying cry of the Pentagon budgeteers in the last dozen or more years. And they’ve been aided and abetted in this point of view by lawmakers of both parties, who believe that more money for the Pentagon is always a good thing. Now they’re re-writing – or just plain disregarding – the rules on how the money can be spent.

The lawmakers fall across the ideological spectrum, and it’s unfair to paint them all as having the same motivations: it may be a military base in their district, a major defense contractor, a belief that the only legitimate purpose of the federal government is to “provide for the common defense.” We’re not here to judge their motivations.

But we will point out that budget gimmicks – about which we write so often – have risen to a new high (or is that dropped to a new low?) in recent years. Navy can’t afford to build the next generation of nuclear submarine? No problem, put the money in a new fund in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, call it the National Sea-based Deterrence Fund, and shove the money in there. The caps from the Budget Control Act of 2011 (BCA) too tight for you? If you’re the Pentagon, Congress will fight to give you exclusive relief in the form of the off-budget Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) accounts.

So we have often referred back to a tiny bit of sanity from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) back in 2010 on the OCO mess. This letter to the Pentagon Comptroller, gave guidance on what could, and could not, be funded with OCO money. And under “Exclusions” is a list of items that OMB specifically states are “Appropriately funded in the base budget.” The list:

• Training equipment
• Equipment Service Life Extension Programs
• Base Realignment and Closure
• Family Support Initiatives
• Industrial Base Capacity
• Personnel
• Office of Security Co-operation

But the Republicans on the Armed Services Committees didn’t want any restrictions on the additional $38.2 billion of unrequested OCO funds they are authorizing for the Pentagon (for a total of slightly more than $89 billion in the coming fiscal year) and decided to close that door, too.

If you look at Section 1501 of the Conference Report, and subsection (2) “APPORTIONMENT. – The Director of the Office of Management and Budget shall apportion the funds identified in paragraph (2) of subsection (a) to the Department of Defense without restriction, limitation or constraint on the execution of such funds in support of base requirements, including any restriction, limitation, or constraint imposed by, or described in, the document entitled ‘Criteria for War/Overseas Contingency Operations Funding Requests’ transmitted by the Director to the Department of Defense on September 9, 2010, or any successor or related guidance.” (Emphasis added)

Because, any restrictions on how the Pentagon can spend the additional $89.2 billion (on top of the $515 billion authorized for base budget) is simply unacceptable to many in the Congress.

Even the rules set by the Office of Management and Budget don’t apply to the Pentagon