MSM Silent as Biden Doubles Trump’s Budget Funding for Police Under DOJ Program
Matt Agorist June 22, 2021
https://thefreethoughtproject.com/m...et-funding-for-police-under-doj-program/If you watched mainstream media television at all during the Trump presidency, Donald Trump was portrayed as a champion of the police state who emboldened bad cops and was responsible for much of the suffering inflicted on the American population. Though this criticism was mostly partisan in nature, it was entirely true. Trump was an enabler of the police state. However, according to the same mainstream media, a Joe Biden victory meant this was all going to go away. As we predicted from the start, this was not true, and now, Americans are quickly finding out that Joe Biden is also a champion of the police state.
Within the Department of Justice, there is the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (or COPS Office). Under this office, the DOJ distributes federal funds in the form of grants to state, local, and tribal police forces.
For the last several years, under the Trump presidency, this funding has remained consistently around $380 million. But now we live in Biden’s “domestic terror” police state and things are changing — fast. Last year, the entire COPS Office appropriation budget was at $386 million. This year, Biden is spending $388 million on the hiring program alone.
This year’s budget (FY 2021) for the hiring program, approved under Trump, was set at $156.5 million. Biden more than doubled the funding for it in FY 2022. Now, under the Biden administration, the FY 2022 budget has been increased to a whopping $651 million. How’s that for “defunding the police”?
Below is a chart showing just how radical of a shift this was. Thanks to Stephen Semler for putting the numbers together.
freestar
Biden is writing this massive increase in funding off as a means of bolstering “community” among police forces. This should come as no surprise, however, given that he was outspoken about this move on his own website.
Policing works best when officers are out of their cruisers and walking the streets, engaging with and getting to know members of their communities. But in order to do that, police departments need resources to hire a sufficient number of officers. Biden spearheaded the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) program, which authorized funding both for the hiring of additional police officers and for training on how to undertake a community policing approach. However, the program has never been funded to fulfill the original vision for community policing. Biden will reinvigorate the COPS program with a $300 million investment.
Apparently, his original plan was underestimated as it has been increased to $388 million, not $300 million.
To those of us paying attention, this move should come as no surprise. As TFTP reported earlier this month, Biden also increased funding for ICE.
Biden’s cheerleading team in the mainstream media has been insultingly silent as the kids in cages program has continued under his tenure. As Republicans blame the lack of a wall, they completely ignore the fact that not only is Biden continuing Trump’s immigration policy — he is spending more on it.
As Reason points out:
Biden’s budget proposal calls for appropriating more than $7.99billion in discretionary funding to ICE during the fiscal year that begins on October 1. That’s about $18 million higher than what Congress authorized for the current fiscal year. If implemented as proposed, Biden’s budget would see the federal government spend more on ICE than it did during three of former President Donald Trump’s four years in office—and it represents a 23 percent increase over the final budget overseen by former President Barack Obama.
In short, Biden’s budget locks in the Trump-era surge in funding for ICE—a surge that caused significant outrage on the political left, as the protesters at Biden’s April speech evince.
In reality, just like many MAGA folks were duped into Trump’s alleged 4D chess plan of making America great, Biden supporters, begging to be fooled again, are falling for the same slick-tongued lies. And so continues the perpetual cycle of America’s love affair with being fooled.
