Biden Admin’s Claim Republicans Defunded Police Receives Three Pinocchios

The recent claim by officials in the Biden administration that the Republicans, not Democrats, were pushing to “defund the police,” was given “Three Pinocchios” by fact-checkers at the Washington Post on Wednesday.

The Biden administration argued that since Republicans did not support the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, which included $350 billion in emergency funding for state and local governments, they wanted to defund the police.

The Washington Post reported, “Although Republicans all opposed Biden’s coronavirus relief package, no one voted to cut, or defund, anything. Rather, Democrats proposed $350 billion in emergency funds for state and local governments, and Republicans voted against those extra funds. That’s not a reduction.”

The law says the $350 billion may be used to “respond to the covid-19 emergency or its negative economic impacts, including assistance to households, small businesses, and nonprofits or aid to impacted industries such as tourism, travel, and hospitality; provide premium pay to essential workers or provide grants to employers of essential workers during the covid-19 emergency; provide government services to the extent of the reduction in revenue of such state, territory, or tribal government due to the covid-19 emergency; or make necessary investments in water, sewer, or broadband infrastructure.”

The Washington Post adds, “Police officers are one category of essential workers covered by the law, but they are not mentioned specifically like ‘impacted industries such as tourism, travel, and hospitality’ or ‘water, sewer, or broadband infrastructure.’ …The American Rescue Plan devoted $350 billion to ‘state and local aid,’ a pot of money that was designed for a variety of budget-plugging purposes. Among those is keeping police, teachers and emergency medical technicians at work, but going strictly by the bill text, lawmakers had no guarantee that police would get a slice of the pie.”

In comparison to the Biden administration’s absurd argument, many Democrats have actually defunded their cities’ police departments. In New York City, for example, Democrats stripped $1 billion from the New York Police Department’s budget, which was criticized by more radical Democrats for not being enough. In Los Angeles, Democrats cut the Los Angeles Police Department’s budget by $150 million, which was praised by Vice President Kamala Harris.