When President Obama announced in April that this supplemental war spending bill would be the last, the rail-related metaphors started rolling in. Lawmakers would engineer ways to get their pet projects to hitch a ride on the last train leaving the Capitol Hill station this fiscal year.

Sure enough, the baggage car on the bill that chugged through the House and Senate over the past couple of weeks was full. The $96.7 billion version that passed the House last Thursday is more than $11 billion beyond the adminsitration’s $83.4 billion request (not counting a couple billion added at the last minute to battle swine flu). The Senate, by a vote of 86-3, passed a $91.3 billion version of the bill just last night, with scant discussion of the Congressionally-driven additions therein. House and Senate leaders expect to hash out the differences in their bills after the Memorial Day recess.

Administration officials said upon release of the bill that Obama “made it very clear to Congress that he …will not tolerate the bill being loaded up with unrelated items,” including earmarks. Lawmakers’ solution was the addition of billions in “committee imperatives.” The House disclosed no earmarks of monetary value, but somehow still managed to add nearly $1 billion for 11 C-130 transport planes; $100 million for wing repairs for Navy aircraft; and $71 million for Capitol Police radios, among other items. Senate appropriators disclosed some earmarks, such as the $489 million for Mississippi Barrier Island Restoration co-sponsored by Committee Ranking Member Thad Cochran (R-MS) and Roger Wicker (R-MS), and another $49 million from Cochran to repair hurricane damage to a Mississippi army amunition plant. But the committee showed plenty of initiative as well, adding $150 million for A-10 aircraft repairs, $500 million for National Guard and Reserve equipment, and $13 million for the Transportation Department’s Essential Air Program, a heavily derided subsidy for small-town airports.

Even if lawmakers tried to rationalize some of these extra-supplemental trimmings as war-related necessities, there’s no justifying adding money for programs that the Secretary of Defense has explicitly marked for death. The House added $2.25 billion for eight C-17 Globemaster cargo planes, one of two eliminated aircraft programs (the other being the F-22 Raptor) beloved by Congress and closely watched for indications of how hard Congress will push back on Defense Secretary Robert Gates. Senators Feinstein (D-CA) and Bond (R-MO) claimed in the mark-up to have refrained from introducing an amendment to fund additional C-17 planes because of Chairman Inouye's (D-HI) support for the program: Inouye said they had “reason to be optimistic.” As for the F-22, the Senate quietly deleted $147 million in shut-down costs, keeping the program on life support until lawmakers can cram more planes into the 2010 defense spending bill.

All these extras were paid for by trimming and rearranging the president’s request with some dubious accounting tools. For example, the House cut $300 million from the operations and maintenance budget account in anticipation of savings from hiring Iraqis to provide labor on service contracts. But is it realistic to spend big money based on such projections?

The vast majority of discussion in both chambers centered on whether or not to include money to close down Guantanamo Bay or funnel war funding through the Defense or State departments, and discussion of adding cash for military warfare was so minimal as to suggest an unspoken understanding. Quickly and quietly slip your pet projects on the train while the conductor is looking elsewhere.