National Guard

The National Guard is a reserve component of the United States Army. As such, its funding is included in the Dept. of Defense budget. Since National Guard units are organized on a state-by-state basis, the funding formulas can get complicated. You might want to look up the Gay Act which accorded a Federal status to what had been considered strictly state Militias.

The Militia Act of 1903, also known as the Dick Act, was the legislation which organized state militias into the National Guard. It provided funds for equipment and training, including annual "summer camps," and it outlined the circumstances under which the militia could be "federalized"--i.e, taken into federal service in time of war. All other costs associated with the national guard are funded by the respective staes.

The Dick Act as opposed to the Gay act? Kind of glad I went Regular Army.

Funny.

You state "all other costs associated with the national guard are funded by the respective states. "

Lustig Andrei states "the National Guard is a reserve component of the United States Army. As such, its funding is included in the Dept. of Defense budget."

Yeah . . . that's called disagreement . . . you'll have that.

Actually we're both right. The funding is included in the DoD budget. How these funds are distributed, however, depends on several factors. Pay for weekend and summer camp service for Guard members, for example, comes via Feceral government checks that look very much like the pay-checks regular army personnel receive. However, a large portion of the allocated budget is given directly to the appropriate agencies of state governments for the maintenance of National Guard facilities, vehicles and weapons etc. The state uses these Federal funds to pay the bills. It's like highway maintenance. The state appears to be maintaining and repaving major U.S. highways but the money for this is actually allocated by the Federal government.

Setanta is correct in saying that "all other costs associated with the National Guard are funded by the respective states." But it's Federal money that enables the states to pay the bills. And that money comes out of the DofD budget.

Most of the money comes from Federal sources. The constitution states in Article One, Section Eight, that: (Congress shall have the power:) To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

Therefore, the Federal government assumes the great majority of the costs of the militia, which, in 1903, became the National Guard. State costs are usually trivial and administrative in nature. However, when the governor of a state calls on the National Guard, and they are deployed while not in Federal Service, the state assumes those costs. An example is the calling forth of the National Guard in Texas to patrol the state's borders by the loon in Austin, Rick Perry (purely a political stunt). The bill has come due, and it's, i believe, $38,000,000--no small sum. Texas is on the hook for those costs, because the Guard were not in Federal service, and Perry's loony plan to bill the Feds on the pretext that the Texas Guard were doing the Feds job for them has been rightly ignored in Washington.

Are you aware that there is the Air National Guard (USAF)...as well as the Army National Guard?

"The Air National Guard (ANG), also known as the Air Guard, is a federal military reserve force as well as the militia force of each U.S. state, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and the territories of Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands. It, along with each state's Army National Guard component, makes up the National Guard of each state."

You sure do if you lived in East Boston in the 50s and 60s. There was a Mass
ANG unit at Logan Airport flying F86 Sabre jets. LOUD buggers.

Yes I am. It's the branch of the military that George W. Bush served in.