Can earmarks be too much of a good thing? Some high-level Defense Department officials think so. TCS commented this week on a recent DoD Inspector General report that aimed to determine the cost and oversight of earmarks and their impact on DoD’s “primary mission.” DoD receives by far the most earmark money of all federal agencies: The IG based its study on 70 of the 2,656 earmarks worth $12 billion in the 2007 defense appropriations bill. In his response to the report, Air Force Assistant Secretary John H. Gibson said that Congressional add-ons had the effect of changing the service’s priorities, to the detriment of its mission. Strong words from the head of a service that received some 300 earmarks worth $1.4 billion in this year’s budget.

But Gibson is apparently not alone in his opinions. The Government Accountability Office interviewed several DoD budget officials for a January survey of how federal agencies handle earmarks. The officials said earmarks impact their budgets by restricting a service’s ability to retire some programs and invest in others; displacing “core” programs; and burning up staff time and effort to process requests. Identifying the “Congressional intent” behind an earmark also reportedly drained staff time until last year’s disclosure laws made the process easier.

This awareness that nothing in life is free—even free money—is heartening. Unfortunately, GAO found that it’s impossible to know just how much earmarks cost DoD or how they impact agency priorities and programs in the long term because DoD still does not have a centralized earmark tracking system. Each service and program office keeps track of Congressional directives, but they aren’t required to report back to the Defense Secretary Comptroller–the one office that could put together a comprehensive picture of how earmarks fluctuate in number, value and consequence. The new Secretary of Defense should take a hint from these reports and start keeping tabs on how much these freebies actually cost.