Caffeinated Politics

One of the ironic aspects of the first year of Donald Trump’s second term in the Oval Office is how conservatives are being asked to balance their ongoing racism with their ongoing zeal to constrain federal spending. Somedays it must be a constant internal spinning of the hamster wheel for those who want their deportations of Brown people but want it done on the cheap.

The news this weekend brings a smirk to the faces of those who have stressed the recklessness of ICE raids and the severe undermining of our national values and ideals as Trump pursues his reaction to the demographic changes in the nation. What we are witnessing is a feeble attempt by white males who think they have the power to alter birth rates and the color hues of a new face for America. Add in the price tag for the foolishness, and there is every reason to understand why there is a reason to smirk.

Some 300 Illinois National Guard members, activated by the Trump administration as part of the Operation Midway Blitz deportation raids and over the objections of Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker, have spent more than a month housed not at a federal installation but at a state-owned National Guard training site — an arrangement that comes as determining precise costs for the Guard deployments in Illinois and across the nation remains a moving target.

Other than for a single day in October, all of the troops stayed on the sidelines amid numerous court battles and judicial rulings. The troops from Texas left Illinois last week, but the Illinois troops remain at Marseilles, state officials confirmed to the Tribune.

In addition to deploying troops to Illinois, Trump also claimed he needed to federalize Guard troops in Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., Portland, Oregon, and Memphis, Tennessee, to assist with immigration raids, crack down on protests or assist in deterring crime. The costs for all those deployments were estimated at about $473 million by the progressive-leaning Institute for Policy Studies, which derived its figures from public records and the news website The Intercept.

Most of that came from spending in L.A. and Washington, but the portion spent for Illinois and Texas Guard member deployments to the Chicago area was estimated to cost $12.8 million — which includes $8.15 million for the 300 Illinois troops from Oct. 4 through Nov. 15 and about $4.66 million for the 200 Texas troops from Oct. 10 through Nov. 15, according to the study.

Citing figures from the Army, Democratic Illinois U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin’s office said the expected operations, maintenance and personnel costs for federalizing all 500 National Guard soldiers in Illinois for a full two months was $19.4 million, which works out to $323,333 per day.

So many reasons to smirk at those conservatives who fell for this rubbish.

We have been listening to the mantra from the right about fiscal spending since, well, forever. They love to pine on about the waste of public tax dollars. They can speechify about bloated bureaucracies, runaway entitlement programs, or pork-barrel spending tucked into appropriations bills until the cows come home. But have you noticed the quiet from this same group when it comes to the waste that should make every budget hawk furious? Nary a word about the deployment of federal troops into American cities for immigration raids that have proven to run against the grain of the public, with polls showing that to be the case with increasing numbers.

I am not sure if the average joe sitting in his favorite chair at night, while being sucked into Fox News and other right-wing networks, understands that sending armed federal personnel into places like Chicago for ICE operations is not a cost-free exercise. It requires lots of overtime pay and hazard bonuses for agents and troops. Logistical expenses from transport, housing, and equipment for personnel stationed far from their home bases. Add in the needed coordination costs with local law enforcement, which, as we know from local reports around the nation, often duplicates existing efforts.

What fiscal conservatives created with a deportation policy and the thugs who work as ICE agents is the exact opposite of the lean government they claim to desire. They now own and support, often by their silence, a sprawling, militarized bureaucracy masquerading as law enforcement.

President Ronald Reagan, when he was the hero to the right-wing, talked about fiscal conservatism being about efficiency and restraint. He would chatter about what was the best use of taxpayer dollars. And the GOP base was in love. But now many of those same people approve of deploying troops in our cities(!) for immigration raids. The federal government is spending millions to chase symbolic victories rather than investing in smarter, cheaper solutions like streamlined immigration courts or targeted workplace enforcement. (If one is truly interested in immigration reform.)

But I have to really laugh at how far adrift the GOP is from its deep romance with Reagan. (I understand a huge swath of the Trump base has no idea of what any of this means.) The concept of federalism is no more. Conservatives once championed local control and limited federal intrusion. Yet these federal troop deployments represent the extreme opposite. Washington is imposing costly, heavy-handed operations on cities that neither requested nor welcomed them, and MAGA eats it up without questioning a single thing.

I often harken back to Republican Congressman Jack Kemp (Kemp-Roth Tax Plan), not because I relished all of his ideas but the fact that he was a man who thought about bigger ideas than the current partisan snits of the day. I have no idea where he would land on the issue of immigration reform, but I strongly suspect he would view the sucking sound of dollars going down a deportation rat hole as stupid. I really think he would be fashioning in his mind a plan that would urge the modernizing ports of entry to reduce illegal crossings and know the benefits of expanding immigration courts to reduce backlogs. He was someone I viewed as thinking about the returns on federal dollars that were spent on a plan or policy. dollars spent.

All we have with Trump and his kneeling party of sycophants is our national values and ideals smeared and horrible headlines about the absurd and mean-spirited treatment of those who reside in our land.

Reagan, or so I thought, had wedded conservatism with the idea of demanding accountability for every dollar the federal government spent. That bond is held with the same degree of certainty as Donald Trump’s three marriages.