Focusing on the portion of the Omnibus Appropriations bill that funds the Department of Defense spending bill, we whipped out our Nancy Drew-style magnifying glass to peruse every table for Procurement and Research, Development, Test & Evaluation (RDT&E) programs that weren’t requested…at all… in the massive President’s Budget Request. These funded but not requested programs make – drumroll please – our famous “Zero to Hero” list. This year’s final total? $3.4 billion in totally unrequested programs are funded in the Pentagon’s appropriations bill.

For reference, you can look back at our Zero to Hero list covering the House Appropriations Committee’s version of this same legislation included RDT&E. House Appropriators added $1.1 billion in totally unrequested procurement programs in its consideration of the Defense Appropriations bill. Another $300 million was added for RDT&E programs the Pentagon never asked for.

Back last Fall, the Senate Appropriators ran rampant with this funding practice, particularly in the RDT&E programs. There were more than 30 total unrequested programs added in just the first two of 35 pages of RDT&E programs. So our Senate Appropriations Committee Zero to Hero list covered just Procurement programs – which totaled a whopping $6.4 billion.

So, we guess we should be grateful that the final list, for both Procurement and RDT&E ended up at just $3.4 billion. Interestingly, almost none of the dozens and dozens of RDT&E adds in the Senate version of the bill made the final cut. That’s unusual, and we’ll take it as a modicum of a good sign.

As a category, the biggest winner on this final Zero to Hero list is definitely shipbuilding. There were five shipbuilding accounts where no money was requested but the Congress added money. Those five budget lines equaled $1.5 billion. That’s well more than one third of the total going just to shipbuilding programs.

In a President’s budget request of roughly $730 billion for the Pentagon it’s hard to believe any of these programs can be much of a priority if they didn’t make the cut. And while we don’t believe lawmakers should be a rubber stamp for the administration’s request, we also know that contractor lobbyists, particularly in the shipbuilding trade, are the driving force behind these adds.

Won’t you let me take you on a sea cruise?