Republican governors from six states––Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Ohio, South Carolina, and West Virginia––are all voluntarily sending National Guardsmen to the nation’s capital. President Trump mobilized the National Guard “under the guise of restoring security” in D.C., “getting rid of the slums,” and forcibly removing unhoused people from the city. As of August 21, more than 2,000 National Guard troops had been deployed in Washington.
The deployment costs more than a million dollars per day. The daily cost of operating public housing for the 30,000 unhoused people in those six states would be less than one day of the occupation. Meanwhile, the daily expense of deploying troops to D.C. is 4.3 times greater than the daily cost of operating public housing for all of the unhoused people in D.C.
HANNA HOMESTEAD; [email protected]
Homestead is a research analyst with the National Priorities Project at the Institute for Policy Studies.
The Institute for Policy Studies published a fact sheet outlining the taxpayer tradeoffs between funding public housing and the D.C. occupation. Using publicly available data, Homestead calculated that the daily cost of operating public housing for all the unhoused people in D.C. on any given day is one-quarter of the expense of deploying the National Guard for a day.
In Other Words, Homestead writes: “Deploying troops in our nation’s capital, rather than investing in what makes communities safe and prosperous, is yet another attempt to scapegoat struggling people––especially communities of color––to advance a draconian agenda in service of billionaires, war profiteers, and white supremacy.”
Homestead told the Institute for Public Accuracy: “There is also an element of racial policing and distraction here. The administration needed something to churn up their base after the Epstein file and now that people will start feeling the effects of the budget. This is a total political move. There is no end in sight to it, since Trump’s memorandum provided no timeframe for the deployment.
“Republican governors are responding to Trump’s claims and sending in National Guardsmen under Title 32 status. These troops are still being federally funded, but under the authority of the governor. This is preposterous and it’s already being challenged in court; they have already found that the deployment of the National Guard in Los Angeles was not necessary for public safety.
“Instead of addressing the needs of constituents, the GOP is willing to spend federal tax money to send troops to the nation’s capital. That’s very concerning and it sheds light on their priorities. They would rather police Black and brown people over taking care of people or meeting the needs of communities or ending the conditions. There is a level of racism at play here. This is a racialized show of force, and a distraction, of course, from the huge cuts in Medicaid and critical spending on resources for poor people that people in these red states depend on.”