U.S. Rep. Jack Kingston, R-Ga. 1st, has a keen eye or divining rod for pinpointing fat and wasteful spending in the federal budget.

It appears so anyway with his recent announcement that he and a Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, Rep. Betty McCollum of Minnesota, teamed up to spotlight millions of dollars the U.S. Department of Defense is consuming unnecessarily.

The target is military sponsorships of professional sports.

In 2011, Rep. Kingston noted, the Defense Department spent $96 million on sponsoring professional sports.

Its funds for the current fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30, total about $80.3 million.

That’s absurd, especially now, when the department doesn’t know what it’s going to do with all the men and women it has in uniform today.

Recruiting, especially in a bad economy, is seldom a problem in so far as meeting quotas...

Reps. Kingston and McCollum obviously do not think it’s right and have convinced the House Appropriations Committee to pass an amendment prohibiting it from this point on.

Rep. McCollum, it should be noted, tried it solo last year, though to no avail.

This is the kind of cuts and government waste Congress needs to be sifting the federal budget for and removing.

And there are more of these, a lot more. You can bet your life on it.