The American taxpayer spent nearly half a billion dollars deploying federal troops to U.S. cities in 2025, CBO finds

A new report by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), released Jan. 28, provides the first comprehensive accounting of the federal government’s push to utilize military assets for domestic law enforcement. The nonpartisan analysis, in response to a request for information from Senate Budget Committee ranking member Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), reveals that between June 2025 and December 2025, the cost of mobilizing National Guard and active-duty Marine Corps personnel to six major American cities totaled approximately $496 million.

The report highlights the financial burden is ongoing and significant. If the administration maintains the troop levels present at the end of 2025, the CBO estimates the recurring cost to the federal budget will be $93 million per month, while deploying just 1,000 National Guard personnel to a U.S. city in 2026 would cost $18 million to $21 million per month, depending largely on local cost-of-living differences. 

Scope of operations

The half-billion-dollar price tag covers operations that began in mid-2025. According to the report, the administration deployed forces to Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., Memphis, Portland, and Chicago. While a deployment to New Orleans also occurred, it was initiated late in the year, so the CBO didn’t include it in the report. This means the real cost of federal troop deployment was higher than calculated.