At Taxpayers for Common Sense, we’ve long been on record opposing the so-called “Unfunded Priorities Lists” (UPLs) prepared by various subsections of the Pentagon. The Department of Defense budget already represents roughly half the annual federal discretionary budget. All that, and they get a second bite of the budgetary apple by being statutorily required to submit wish lists of additional items to the Congress.

These lists have grown from being presented by each of the military services to now every Combatant Commander, the Missile Defense Agency, the National Nuclear Security Administration at the Department of Energy…you name it…at least fifteen lists. Do you have a membership in one of the Pentagon Executive Dining Rooms? Then you, too, can probably submit a list to Congress… (Disclaimer: we’re joking and we probably shouldn’t be giving anyone any ideas.)

We’ve been compiling all the UPLs we can get our hands on. It’s quite a list, which we have presented both at this link and below. Our colleagues at the National Taxpayers Union have been adding up the lists to find it is currently a whopping $23.5 billion.

When Congress finalized the Fiscal Year 2022 Omnibus Appropriations Act, just a few weeks ago, the Unfunded Priorities Lists were folded in as part of the effort by Defense hawks to boost the Pentagon topline by tens of billions of dollars. This is just another example of what we call backdoor earmarking. Contractor lobbyists are watching and learning. Watch for this practice to expand.

Read the list below or download it here.