Why wasn’t it ever stopped?
“Why wasn’t it ever stopped?”
Great question! I can only speculate, but I suspect the DoD got VERY comfortable with the money and a self-perpetuating bureaucracy was quickly established that acted very much like lobbyists. In federal bureaucracies the number of people you “control” and number of dollars you “manage” are measures of success. It is the classic “mine is bigger than yours” argument by proxy, and is the major point in every written performance evaluation I have ever seen...
Once a “Line Item” is established by Congress, they are rarely stopped. They are reviewed and modulated, but not eliminated because each one has a “sponsor” who keeps it alive. That is the main reason I see for the “Line Item Veto” power of the Presidency. It is the obvious check on the Log-Rolling, Pork Barrel traits of Congress.
In Congress it probably became a political “hot potato”. Who wants to vote against Breast Cancer Research or anything to do with Women’s Health?
I think a LOT of things that start off as PORK wind up this way. Think about all the “subsidies” that are now UN-stoppable... IMHO, we need a way to STOP PORK if we insist on starting it in the first place.