Out of a bill that was supposed to cut government spending and waste wherever it is found, lawmakers managed to cobble together an additional $50 billion for the U.S. Defense Department's budget, using an accounting trick to disguise the move.

Instead of cutting $400 billion from the Pentagon's budget over the next 12 years like President Barack Obama proposed in April, Republicans put their own cuts at $350 billion over the next 13 years, leaving the nation's defense apparatus an extra $50 billion it hadn't planned on.