Today’s Washington Times posted an article on a study showing how some of the money appropriated for guns and ammunition for our troops is actually being spent.  There are $2.6 billion being put into pet projects.  The money was largely taken from accounts that pay for fuel, ammunition and training for U.S. troops, including those fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

According to the article, some of the projects include:

“$25 million for a new World War II museum at the University of New Orleans and $20 million to launch an educational institute named after the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, Massachusetts Democrat.”  

The study was conducted by Winslow Wheeler, a former Senate staffer who worked on defense funding and oversight for both Republicans and Democrats. He is now a senior fellow at the Center for Defense Information, an independent research organization.

The article reports:

“Mr. Wheeler said that senators took most of the cash for the projects from the “operations and maintenance” or O&M accounts.

“These are the accounts that pay for troop training, repairs, spares and supplies for vehicles, weapons, ships and planes, food and fuel,” Mr. Wheeler said.”

There is already a privately-funded World War II museum in New Orleans.  It is a fantastic musuem–I have been there.  There is no need to put a publicly funded museum of the same time period in the same place.  There is not a problem with an educational institute named after Senator Kennedy, but why does it have to be publicly funded at the expense of our soldiers?

We are fighting a war in Afghanistan.  If Congress continues to take money away from that war effort, our chances of actually winning it will decrease substantially.