Thank you for following up to provide a source, though the Twitter (X) user
MeidasTouch is not the author of the factoid as its tweet appears to suggest.
MediasTouch represents itself as an American progressive media company that is engaged in "pro-democracy" journalism. Apparently that doesn't include providing attribution for content that it copies from other sources, or providing an explanation for claims that it tweets.
As my question stated, I was curious to understand a basis for the calculation. Though I noticed that you placed quote tags around the statement in your post, you did not include an attribution. Thus, I assumed you had performed the calculation yourself.
My subsequent research suggests that the quoted factoid originated from Anthony Orrico, a news reporter at the recently launched US division of
The Mirror, which includes a statement on its website that it expects staff "to use their best endeavors to verify the stories being put forward for publication."
The article relates that the basis for the claim uses "publicly available data" to "suggest" that deportation flights operated by the US military "may be" significantly more expensive than flights chartered with private carriers by DHS. The reality of the situation is that whatever cost basis is eventually determined for the flights is likely to be different from the amounts published by
MeidasTouch.
As the
original article in The Mirror relates; according to retired Gen. Glen VanHerck, former commander of the US Northern Command, the Pentagon will likely move funds within its budget that are already authorized by Congress to cover "unforeseen, high-priority missions." The publicly available data used by Anthony Orrico to estimate that cost comes from a
Budget Memorandum from the Comptroller's Office of the Under Secretary of Defense, which provides FY 2023 fixed wing and helicopter reimbursement rates from DoD to other government entities. I note that reimbursement rate is not the same as operating cost and that the original article in
The Mirror failed to make that distinction.
As I mentioned above, the actual cost basis is yet to be determined. Regardless of the hourly rate, the federal government will be taking funds from one federal agency and transferring them to another federal agency. It is a bookkeeping entry. The tweet is misleading because it assumes the reimbursement rate is also the cost of operating the aircraft. That is incorrect.
