WASHINGTON -- Here's a tricky question for the serious budget-wonks:
Where in the federal budget would you find spending for:
* Breast-cancer research.
* Environmental cleanup efforts.
* Drug-enforcement programs.
* Financing for public schools.
* Aid to the Soviet Union.
* Jobs for workers in Connecticut.
* Rifle practice for neighborhood teens.
* Government support for the 1996 Olympics.
* Memorial Day and July 4th concerts?
If you're busily thumbing through the spending programs for all 149 federal departments and agencies, let us save you the trouble: Look under "Department of Defense, Military."
The Pentagon budget has all of these items, and dozens more.
What's all that stuff doing in the nation's defense budget?
Many members of Congress have begun asking that question as well. In response to lawmakers' inquiries, the Congressional Research Service has identified 126 programs in the military budget that have nothing to do with the business of fighting wars.
And Republicans on the new House and Senate national security committees are planning to launch an effort in the 104th Congress to separate such "non-defense" programs and transfer them to other departments.
Lawmakers who support such a shift argue that stripping the military budget of non-defense programs would free top Pentagon officials to concentrate more on military issues.
But their real hope is that revamping the budget will generate billions of dollars in savings that then could be converted to actual military use. It would help "achieve our agenda of a stronger national defense," said Iowa Sen. Charles E. Grassley.
It's no secret why the Pentagon budget is loaded with such oddities. Aid to public schools, for example, was added during Korean War days to help school districts that were located near military bases absorb the influx of new families. The war ended, but the program remained.
The environmental cleanup money was added to help the Pentagon spruce up polluted military bases that it was set to close before it makes them available for civilian use. And the program to underwrite rifle practice for local youths is a holdover from World War I.
In recent years, Democrats who wanted to provide more money for social spending such as job training programs -- and were frustrated by the ceilings that Congress had placed on domestic spending -- simply funneled the new programs into the Pentagon budget instead.
Partly as a result, the size of the non-defense portion of the Pentagon budget has soared. The nonpartisan Defense Budget Project estimates that the total has mushroomed to $23 billion in fiscal 1995, up from $11.6 billion in fiscal 1990.
Critics of transferring the programs argue that removing the non-fighting operations may make for a more pristine defense budget, but the Pentagon is unlikely to benefit from any savings. Carole Lessure, an analyst for the Defense Budget Project, warns that most of the so-called "non-defense" programs transferred to other departments would probably continue to be funded -- in effect, the money would be transferred with the programs.
Cleaning up the environment on soon-to-close military bases is a requirement set by Congress, Ms. Lessure points out, and it's likely that any attempt to abolish it would be met by strong opposition from voters.
Some compromise on the issue seems likely. There is speculation that lawmakers will leave the non-defense programs in the Pentagon's portfolio but try to save money by easing regulations.
That will not yield anywhere near the pot of gold that some pro-defense senators envision. But a billion dollars here and there can add up to big money.