The Georgia National Guard was preparing to cancel training events and make “draconian” cuts if Congress had not met a weekend deadline to reimburse military units across the nation for securing the Capitol in the months after the deadly Jan. 6 attacks, Maj. Gen. Tom Carden said.
But that was avoided Thursday when the U.S. Senate and House passed a $2.1 billion emergency security funding bill, including $521 million to reimburse the Army and Air National Guard for the costs associated to the response to the Jan. 6 insurrection.
The state guard faced a roughly $8.5 million budget shortfall after sending more than 1,200 soldiers to the Capitol for roughly two weeks in the wake of the attacks, which were led by a pro-Donald Trump mob that sought to prevent Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory.
Carden cautioned what would happen if the deal unraveled in an interview, saying he would have been forced to cancel drills, make cuts to the guard’s temporary workforce and scuttle other discretionary training.
“These are the same men and women who patrolled the streets of Atlanta during the summer, the same men and women who wiped down doorknobs in nursing homes, worked in food banks and served in Iraq,” the adjutant general said.
“I couldn’t be more proud of them. And the last thing I want to do is to have to implement austerity measures that will make them less safe on the battlefields of tomorrow.”
Georgia deployed 1,285 members of the guard to Washington to secure the Capitol at the military command’s request, up from the 62 troops the unit planned to send. After that detachment of soldiers returned home, a smaller deployment of about 200 troops was stationed at the Capitol for a month.
A bipartisan deal approved unanimously in the Senate and by a 416-11 vote in the House compensates Georgia and other guard units for previous costs and finances security improvements for the Capitol complex. It also includes money to assist with relocating Afghan nationals who worked for or on behalf of the U.S. government during the “war on terror.”
Biden is expected to soon sign it into law.
