President Joe Biden isn’t the only one interested in expanding the national police state. The U.S. Senate wants in on the action too.
Earlier this month, the Senate voted 95-3 on a non-binding budget resolution to fund the hiring of 100,000 police officers. The vote doesn’t authorize any funding but affirms the Senate’s support for including the money in the budget.
Sen. Josh Hawley brought up the resolution. The Missouri Republican also introduced a bill to create a grant program to fund hiring local cops. According to Fox News, the legislation would “provide federal grants to locales to boost new police hires; increase penalties for assaulting federal officers by 50 percent; develop programs to protect the private information judges, prosecutors, and law enforcement officials; extend concealed carry rights to federal judges and prosecutors; increase service programs for federal officers; and more.”
Former Michigan Representative Justin Amash ripped Congress for its rush to expand the ever-expanding national police state.
“It says a lot about Congress that so many senators were tripping over themselves to endorse federal funding of local police—an act incongruent with federalism and dangerous to civil liberties by making police forces more dependent on a distant, centralized authority for support.”
Despite all of the talk about “defunding police,” only one Democrat voted “no” on the resolution – Sen. Bernie Sanders. The other two no-votes were by Republicans Mike Lee (Utah) and Sen. Pat Toomey (Penn.)
President Joe Biden is also pushing increased federal funding for police. In his first budget proposal, Biden more than doubles funding for a federal program that doles out money to state and local police departments to hire law enforcement officers. The Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS Office) is a federal welfare program that helps fund state and local police agencies with money for officer hiring and retention.
This money comes will all kinds of strings attached, requiring police departments that take the money to follow certain federal guidelines.
Despite selling it as a program to battle violent crime, federal cop funding is really nothing but an extension of the unconstitutional war on drugs. In effect, money incentivizes police departments to focus on federal priorities. Federal priorities will come first whether or not they are really those that would most benefit local residents or not.
Through incentives created by federal funding and the proliferation of joint task forces that combine state, local and federal policing, the federal government has effectively created a national police force.
The federal government was never intended to exercise “police powers” in the first place. The Constitution only defines four federal crimes – treason, piracies and felonies committed on the high Seas, counterfeiting, and crimes against the law of nations. The federal government also has criminal jurisdiction within Washington D.C. and its other enclaves.
The creation of every other federal crime violates the Constitution.
In other words, virtually the entire federal law enforcement apparatus is unconstitutional.
Nevertheless, the federal government is developing a national police force that operates outside of any jurisdictional, legal or constitutional boundaries. Joint task forces are a threat to liberty. States should simply withdraw.
Despite all of the “defund the police” talk coming from Democrats, Biden and his fellow Democrats in Congress clearly want to expand this national police state. After all, if you really want to understand priorities, follow the money.
