Defunding the Police
“Defunding” the police is the latest version of the same old, tired, Democrat ploy to rob people of their money.
People pay taxes to ensure that streets are maintained; that police, fire, and other first responders are available to protect them; to ensure that schools are available to teach their children.
Then, Democrat ideologues spend untold sums of that money on their political agendas and, when there’s not enough money to undertake the core government functions that taxes were supposed to fund, they push innumerable “special” taxes and bonds to fund the things people really want funded (e.g., special school taxes, and police taxes, EMT taxes and fire taxes, highway construction bonds, etc.).
“Defund the Police” is just a way to raid the police budget for social welfare expenditures, knowing full well that, when people later get upset that no one responds when they call 911, they’ll be able to push additional taxes to fund the police again.
Note the mindset that money, once collected, is theirs to spend on whatever they wish. Keep voting for Democrats and you’ll get more of the same.
Why not REFUND the Taxpayers? Defund the Police? Then return the money to those who paid it.
Ralph Ortolano
San Pedro
Ralph,
There’s a whole bunch of things that our taxes pay for beyond police, firefighters and street maintenance if you think about it. Many of those services go unnoticed until they stop working, like the day your trash doesn’t get picked up or when the sewer system gets flooded with rain water and overflows onto our beaches.
People like to complain about government overspending and inefficiencies up to the point that there’s a crisis like now and suddenly the health departments emerge as “essential” operations. You probably will complain about wearing a mask or social distancing too, but science and data shows that this is sound medical advice. So, in a world driven by data we just might want to take a look at the crimes stats, which show that violent crime in Los Angeles is at a 20-year low, not because we have more police but because of other factors like low-unemployment rates up until now.
Ask most police officers and they will tell you that they can’t arrest their way out of the homeless crisis. Ask Sheriff Alexander Villanueva about running the largest mental health facility in the nation — the Los Angeles County Jail. Then, explain why we are using badged officers to be social workers or mental health professionals. The police agencies would gladly give up dealing with homeless and crazy people so they can go back to their core mission of solving and preventing crime. James Preston Allen,
Publisher