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Trump has turned the National Guard into mall cops. Cost? $1 million a day. (www.motherjones.com)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/usa@midwest.social
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[–] 16 points 1 year ago (2 children)

$1M/day...

Okay, assuming $50k/yr cost per person, that's something like $135/day for each "cop". That's like 7000 people if salary was the only thing.

Since I don't think there are even 1000 of them deployed in DC, then there's a lot of overhead going somewhere else. Uniforms, admin, whatever. Likely some good old fashioned corruption and grift.

Also, I'm kind of surprised that number is that low.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    Okay, assuming $50k/yr cost per person,

    Double that. At least. Pay and benefits to the troops are going to average significantly higher than 50k, and that's just to get them to their muster point. If you want them to actually go somewhere and do something, that's all going to be extra.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    Your cost per person is probably off. National Guard is supposed to be supplemental, so they call up people from their normal life for higher pay. If keeping a standing army is cooking at home then calling up the National Guard is Uber Eats, not a big deal if occasional but not very sustainable.

    And a ton of money is spent on the military, not even necessarily run of the mill corruption. Keeping those giant knock off Batmobiles running daily probably requires special servicing and parts, procurement and logistics have specific markups, long term lodging and food were unplanned and thus expensive, etc...

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