The White House launched a new attack on the House GOP’s debt limit bill on Wednesday, claiming that the proposed spending cuts included in the legislation would slash funding for nearly every federal law enforcement agency and have a trickle-down effect on local police departments—the latest attempt by the White House to pin the “defund the police” narrative on Republicans.
The House GOP bill passed last week to raise the debt limit includes broad spending cuts the White House claims amount to “the biggest vote to defund law enforcement in American history,” Biden officials told the Washington Examiner.
The bill—which includes a $4.5 trillion reduction in government spending and a $1.5 trillion debt-limit hike through March of next year—would force furloughs of DEA agents and layoffs among border patrols, the FBI, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and the Bureau of Prisons, White House spokesperson Andrew Bates wrote in a memo set to be sent to White House allies on Wednesday.
The memo also asserts that the cuts would eliminate federal funding for local law enforcement agencies through the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) program, effectively reducing hiring in more than half of the country’s local police departments over the next five years.
The move is the latest by the White House and Democrats to extricate themselves from the misrepresented “defund the police” narrative that gained prominence during the police-brutality protests in 2020.
In April, the White House also went on the offense against the GOP regarding its proposed cuts to the ATF, the agency that polices federal gun violations and has been a target for Republicans and gun-rights activists for years.
House Freedom Caucus Chair Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.) defended the proposed cuts on Wednesday, telling the Examiner that border patrol agents need a shift in budgetary and policy priorities, rather than additional money. “They’re willing and able to do the job,” Perry said. “They need a president and a secretary of homeland security who will enforce current law.”
Discover more from News Facts Network
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
