How Do We Fund The National Guard?

[ThomWV]

While watching Christopher Hellman (Analyst for the Center for Arms Control & Non-Proliferation) on C-Span this morning a question occurs to me about how we fund our troops in Iraq.

Who pays for National Guard troops before they are activated for service with our regular troops and who pays for them after?

It has been my assumption that it is the States that pay for their Guard units while they are under the control of the state's Governor but that their cost transfers to the Federal Government when they are called to national service. So, unless I've got it dead wrong, normally the states pay for a soldier's training for two weeks per year plus whatever time is spent with monthly drills. However if they are called to national service the price goes up by at least 26X (a full year's worth of weeks compared to 2 weeks) but that the cost is now a Federal problem.

Is that accurate? I ask because if its true then the effect is to lower the cost of operation by the states, and somehow I doubt that is what is happening.

[izzie]

1. I hope you get an ans. I would be interested also.

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