Trump's deployment of National Guard costs taxpayers nearly $500 million, CBO says
Source: The Hill
01/28/26 4:13 PM ET
President Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops across major U.S. cities has cost taxpayers nearly half a billion dollars through the end of 2025, according to a new report from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).
Since June, the administration has deployed the National Guard personnel to six cities — Los Angeles, Chicago, New Orleans, Memphis, Tenn., Portland, Ore., and Washington, D.C. — costing taxpayers about $496 million through the end of last year, the CBO said in a 10-page report to Sen. Jeff Merkley (Ore), the top Democrat on the Senate Budget Committee.
“The costs of those or other deployments in the future are highly uncertain, mainly because the scale, length, and location of such deployments are difficult to predict accurately,” the CBO said. “That uncertainty is compounded by legal challenges, which have stopped deployments to some cities, and by changes in the Administration’s policies.”
The continued deployment of the National Guard at its current size as of the end of 2025 would cost $93 million per month, while deploying 1,000 National Guard troops to a city this year would cost between $18 million to $21 million per month, depending on the city’s cost of living, the CBO said in the report.
Read more: https://thehill.com/policy/defense/5711415-national-guard-troops-taxpayer-burden/
Link to Congressional Budget Office (CBO) REPORT (PDF) - https://www.budget.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/cbo_letter_to_merkley_cost_for_domestic_troop_deployments.pdf
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