Congress has added more than 300 expensive, unrelated earmarks to the current defense spending bill, tacking on some $20 billion in costs for projects like cancer research at historically black colleges and making sure troops are aware of the location of the gym on their military bases.
These earmarks were not requested by the Pentagon, but Congress has a long and complicated record of insisting that the military buy planes, weapons, ships, and more that the military does not want, whether because they are outdated, dangerous, or otherwise unneeded.
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