Defense appropriators in Congress have recommended adding nearly $15 billion the Pentagon did not request in fiscal 2025 for several hundred military research and procurement programs, a new database shows.

In most cases, those increases were additions to the amount of funds the Pentagon had sought. But more than one-third of the money went to scores of new programs, mostly weapons, that were not in the Pentagon’s budget plans for fiscal 2025, according to the report and corresponding database, which were released Wednesday by Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonpartisan budget monitor.

The report is the latest in a series of analyses in recent years by the group and CQ Roll Call that have disclosed how members of Congress appear to be funneling billions of Defense dollars to their constituents — and sometimes to campaign contributors — for initiatives the Pentagon did not formally seek and that bankroll contracts that defense lobbyists acknowledge are often open to competition in name only.

In the new report, the taxpayers organization spotlights programs that were not sought by the Pentagon but were inserted in the funding tables by members as ideologically diverse as such as Illinois’ Democratic Sens. Richard J. Durbin and Tammy Duckworth and Republicans such as Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York, a close ally of President Donald Trump, and Rep. Tony Gonzales, R- Texas, an appropriator.

‘Backdoor earmarks’

The spending directions from Congress are included in tables that Republican Defense appropriators sent the department last month to spell out how members believe Defense money in the fiscal 2025 continuing resolution should be spent.

The stopgap spending bill’s $895.2 billion for Defense programs is $6 billion over fiscal 2024, a cut in spending after inflation is factored in, while nondefense departments and agencies saw their nominal funding cut by $13 billion compared to fiscal 2024.

Lawmakers always add money to the Defense budget above the requested amount for some programs and cut it for others. But, more and more in recent years, as uncompetitive earmarks have been halted except for nonprofit organizations, members have in many cases used so-called “program increases” to try to in effect funnel defense funds to favored recipients.

Gabe Murphy, policy analyst for Taxpayers for Common Sense, said in an interview that the Defense Department program increases are “backdoor earmarks.”

Steve Ellis, the group’s president, said in a statement that earmarks require lawmakers to “disclose their involvement in proposing them, spell out their purpose, and certify that they have no financial interest in the earmark. In contrast, program increases are largely anonymous, come with little to no justification, and do not require lawmakers to certify anything.”

Bipartisan appetite

The billions in added Defense funds for program increases often go each year to high-profile, top-dollar initiatives such as the F-35 fighter jet program.

But the vast majority of the hundreds of annual additions, in fiscal 2025 and previously, are worth less than $30 million apiece but add up to sizable amounts even in the massive national defense budget.

Congressional and Pentagon auditors have previously confirmed that they have not produced any reports examining the effectiveness of the congressional “program increases.”

Lawmakers’ appetite for adding unrequested funds each year for projects they say will benefit their states or districts is a bipartisan and bicameral phenomenon.

One of the funding increases was $5 million for the Army to research a “thermoplastic tail rotor drive system” for Blackhawk helicopters — spending the service had not sought.

Stefanik issued a press release last June after the House and the Senate Appropriations committees had signed off on fiscal 2025 Defense spending bills with the money included.

Even though such “program increase” money is supposed to be put out for competition, Stefanik listed the Blackhawk system as one of the “defense wins” she had garnered for her district and region.

“The investments I secured through this year’s defense appropriations bill . . . will bolster our national security and further solidify Upstate New York’s role as a defense technology hub,” Stefanik’s statement said.

She noted that the funds will enable the Army to “research using thermoplastic made by Collins Aerospace in Rome, NY.”

Collins Aerospace is a subsidiary of RTX Corporation, formerly Raytheon.

According to OpenSecrets.org^[1], a nonpartisan and nonprofit monitor of campaign money, RTX Corporation’s PAC contributed $10,000 to Stefanik’s campaign committee in the 2024 election cycle, the report said.

“As a senior member of the House Armed Services Committee, I am proud to advocate on behalf of Upstate New York and the North Country in the annual national defense bills,” Stefanik said by email. “I will always work to deliver results for NY-21 defense companies that support jobs in my district and ensure our service members have access to the best technology possible.”

Illinois Humvee program

The funding tables also include $100 million in unrequested Army funds for a “Next Generation HMMWV Shop Equipment Contact Maintenance Vehicle,” a Humvee that provides mobile maintenance to maneuvering units.

In a joint press release last July celebrating “Spending Bills With Illinois Priorities Secured By Durbin, Duckworth,” the senators highlighted the Senate bill’s proposed funding for the project, which was $120 million, “to continue manufacturing” of the vehicle at the Army’s Rock Island Arsenal in Illinois.

The vehicle is built at the arsenal by AM General. That company is owned by KPS Capital Partners, which has contributed to both senators’ campaign accounts.

Duckworth’s office did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

A spokesperson for Durbin said by email Wednesday that tactical vehicles at the Rock Island Arsenal are “recognized as critical by the Army.”

Despite Durbin’s previous touting of the added funding for the Humvee program, the spokesperson said Democrats “did not have any hand” in writing the new stopgap spending bill, “so any questions about lawmakers increasing DoD funding in the FY25 bill should go to the Majority.”

Scramjets

Another added spending line was $15 million for the Air Force to support “Vertical Integration of Scramjet Supply Chain.”

In a June 2024 press release celebrating his role in crafting the House’s Defense spending measure, Gonzales wrote that the funding would “accelerate the research, development, and production of hypersonic propulsion systems/airbreathing hypersonic engines” by putting all the suppliers in a single location.

Notably, his statement said: “The Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio specializes in this area of military innovation.”

In 2024, the institute paid $320,000 in lobbying fees to Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP, the taxpayer group said, and records show individuals and PACs associated with Akin Gump contributed $14,503 to Gonzales’ campaign in the 2024 election cycle.

Gonzales’ aides did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

More Defense funds en route?

The funding tables in Defense appropriations laws are not hard requirements in statute, but they communicate to the Pentagon how appropriators want the funds to be spent — and the department normally adheres to their direction.

Because the fiscal 2025 funding tables were sent to the department only after the continuing resolution had been enacted and were the work of only Republicans, they might be construed as being less binding than usual.

Yet the tables represent just about all the detailed information the department has to go on about lawmakers’ intent.

In fiscal 2023 Defense spending law, the funding tables included 996 unrequested additions for program increases amounting to $12.2 billion. Not included in the Taxpayers for Common Sense tallies are congressional hikes to spending for military personnel, operations and maintenance, military construction or other major categories of defense spending.

In the fiscal 2024 law, the number surged to $21 billion for 1,072 separate increases.

The fiscal 2025 total of $14.95 billion, while down from the prior year, may not be the end of congressional insistence on unrequested boosts for little-known weapons accounts.

Senators unveiled on Wednesday^[2] a compromise budget resolution that could add at least $100 billion for defense programs over the next decade, and lawmakers have said they want those monies spent in the next couple of years.

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©2025 CQ-Roll Call, Inc., All Rights Reserved. Visit cqrollcall.com.^[3] Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

The U.S. Naval Academy^[1] has confirmed that officials there removed items commemorating female Jewish graduates from a historic display ahead of a visit to the school by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Tuesday.

The Military Religious Freedom Foundation, or MRFF, a nonprofit group that advocates for religious freedom, first reported on the move^[2] after its members noticed the removal of the items on display at the Commodore Uriah P. Levy Center and Jewish Chapel.

Cmdr. Ashley Hockycko confirmed late Tuesday that the historical items honoring the Jewish graduates had been removed but said that it was done so "mistakenly." "U.S. Naval Academy leadership is immediately taking steps to review and correct the unauthorized removal," she added.

Read Next: Air Force Brings Back Flight Restrictions on Pregnant Crew Members in Policy Reversal^[3]

The removal appears to be the latest example of military and defense officials removing displays, websites and other materials honoring the achievements of women and minorities within the military, often with the presumption of acting on Hegseth's orders^[4] or reacting to his preferences and beliefs.

The defense secretary, along with the wider Trump administration, has spent its months in office purging the Pentagon, military and federal government of anything it deems diversity related, which has been widely interpreted by the military services and many others to mean anything that recognizes women and people with minority backgrounds.

Hegseth issued a vague order for the Defense Department to remove all "news articles, photos, and videos promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), including content related to critical race theory, gender ideology, and identity-based programs."

Since that order, the military has removed books from schools that featured women who fought in the U.S. Civil War^[5]; deleted websites that highlighted Kristen Griest^[6], the first woman to graduate from the Army^[7]'s grueling Ranger School; and pulled lessons in Air Force^[8] boot camp that featured the Tuskegee Airmen, the historic Black aviators, and the Women's Airforce Service Pilots.

Some of that content has been restored^[9] after the removals became public. However, Hegseth's office has not offered a full accounting of what has been removed to date.

MRFF founder and President Mikey Weinstein told Military.com in an interview Wednesday that his organization heard from 31 Naval Academy faculty, Midshipmen and staff, who were "outraged" by the removal of the items.

According to the MRFF, the displays containing items from male Jewish graduates and service members were left untouched.

However, the items were removed for only a short time, and officials told Military.com that they had been restored by Tuesday evening, having been gone less than a day.

The military academy also purged nearly 400 books from its library around the time of Hegseth's visit as well, an official confirmed to Military.com. The books were banned under the Trump administration push to purge materials related to diversity, and were culled from library shelves before the defense secretary's visit to the academy, according to The Associated Press^[10].

The move comes about a week after the Capital Gazette, an Annapolis newspaper, reported that leaders at the Naval Academy didn't think they needed to remove any books^[11] since President Donald Trump's January executive order banning materials on diversity applied to kindergarten through 12th-grade schools that receive federal funding -- not colleges.

The Navy^[12] would not offer a list of the books removed when asked.

The orders and policies claiming to target "diversity, equity and inclusion" -- a term that has taken on a difficult-to-define and amorphous meaning under the Trump administration -- are leaving officials in the Pentagon and the military branches frustrated. They feel that many of the policies being released by Hegseth demand urgency but lack specifics^[13] and are open to interpretation.

One official who remained anonymous to speak freely without fear of retaliation frustratedly noted to Military.com that this dynamic sets up a "damned if you do, damned if you don't situation."

If the military services and their various offices overreact and remove content^[14] that becomes a scandal, they are slammed by Hegseth and his staff for "malicious compliance."

That dynamic played out several weeks ago when the Pentagon was forced to walk back the removal of a website honoring trailblazing baseball player and Army veteran Jackie Robinson.

Robinson's webpage was among a tranche of content about recordbreaking female aviators^[15]; World War II Navajo Code Talkers^[16]; medal recipients in segregated combat units^[17]; and "numerous other wartime sacrifices^[18] by soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen" that was discovered to be offline by Congress, Military.com reported two weeks ago^[19].

In a March 21 video, Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell^[20] admitted that "some important content was inadvertently pulled offline" and attributed that to "the realities of AI tools and other software." He said content was being both "mistakenly removed" and "maliciously removed."

Meanwhile, the official went on to note, if the services take directives at their literal meaning, which was seemingly what the Naval Academy did when it decided it didn't need to purge its library since it was not a K-12 school, that leads to the perception of noncompliance with orders and directives.

The result, according to the official, is a very uneven and ad hoc application of policy that leaves employees and officials paralyzed, frustrated and uncertain, with little more to go on than what they see in public statements like Parnell's videos or Hegseth's appearances on television.

"History is not DEI," Parnell declared in his video.

"What does that mean? What am I supposed to do with that?" the official said.

Related: Lawmakers Demand Trump Administration Restore Removed Webpages Celebrating Troops^[21]