The U.S. Army will spend $45 million on a 250th anniversary parade in Washington — and that figure doesn’t include costs for the Secret Service or the Metropolitan Police Department. The price tag has sparked fierce pushback on Capitol Hill.
At his first House Appropriations hearing, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth defended a trillion dollar Pentagon budget, pledging to restore the warrior ethos, rebuild our military and reestablish deterrence.
Lawmakers zeroed in on two line items: the $45 million parade and the $134 million deployment of nearly 5,000 National Guard troops and Marines to Los Angeles to support ICE during immigration protests.
Rep. Betty McCollum blasted the parade cost and the Los Angeles mission as premature and escalatory. Hegseth fired back that “we care about the troops and they’re now housed and fed.”
