Congress added nearly $34 billion above the president's fiscal 2026 defense request for more than 1,000 research and procurement programs favored by lawmakers but not necessarily by the military, according to a new report.

The $33.97 billion in a fiscal 2026 omnibus spending law is a dramatic surge in appropriations for what are known as program increases in the defense budget, according to the report and database, which are due out Thursday from Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonpartisan group that monitors federal spending.

By comparison, the fiscal 2024 and 2025 totals for such programs were lower — at $21 billion and $14.95 billion, respectively.

The topline of the Defense spending bill was $8.4 billion above the request, so appropriators covered most of the cost of their unrequested program additions by finding subtractions to other requested programs, including readiness accounts.

The total in defense program increases since fiscal 2022 comes to more than $134 billion, the taxpayers group has found.

"That's a huge amount of money going out the door with virtually no transparency or public debate," said Gabe Murphy, policy analyst with the taxpayers group.

But it is not clear today to what degree the unrequested program increases are leading to useful weapons.

That is partly because of the opacity of the process, critics say. The funds are inserted by lawmakers — mostly anonymously — with virtually no public debate.

"The solution is basic transparency," Murphy said. "Lawmakers should welcome the opportunity to justify their proposals and identify themselves as sponsors, unless of course they have something to hide."

"When we see companies and their lobbyists contributing to lawmakers who then secure program increases that benefit those companies, we know we have a problem," said Murphy.