Senate Earmarks $5 Billion in Defense Bill

The Senate version of the fiscal 2008 defense appropriations bill includes $5.2 billion in earmarks, according to a new analysis by Taxpayers for Common Sense, a Washington fiscal watchdog group.

That makes the bill the most expensive of all the House and Senate versions of the 12 appropriations bills Congress must pass each year. There are fewer actual earmarks—936—in the Senate version of the defense bill than in the House's, but they're worth more than $2 billion more overall.

Sens. Daniel Inouye of Hawaii and Ted Stevens of Alaska, the chairman and ranking member of the Senate defense appropriations subcommittee, "were at the head of the class, with $183 million and $190 million worth of earmarks by themselves," according to the group.

—Silla Brush