WASHINGTON — Members of Congress have added just over $38 billion for 1,499 military research and procurement programs in fiscal 2025 that the president didn’t seek, according to a previously unpublicized database analyzed by CQ Roll Call.
About half the weapons-related projects are in the Senate Defense appropriations bill and half in the House bill, according to the review by Taxpayers for Common Sense, which is being made public Thursday.
If past is prologue, the vast majority of the congressional priorities will become law.
The taxpayers group began compiling the data only a few years ago. Between fiscal 2021 and 2024, they found the number of enacted congressional additions to defense research programs alone — not counting procurement — increased from 600 to 996, or 66 percent. When the group began to include procurement spending, it found a similar trend.
The fiscal 2025 increase is unusually large, jumping to 1,499 research…
