The Federal Government's fiscal year ends on September 30. Congress must pass 12 spending bills before then in order to keep the government funded and avoid a government shutdown.
This is how Democrats plan to push their most radical provisions across the finish line. They attach radical amendments to these 12 must-pass spending bills and then dare Republicans to vote against them, knowing full-well that a no vote would lead to a government shutdown.
I am happy to report that the GOP knows about these poison pill amendments and is blocking most of them.
But there is one amendment that Democrats are saying is non-negotiable: a provision tucked away in the National Defense Authorization Act -- the bill that funds the Pentagon -- that would cut off and defund American police departments!
The Pentagon is always retiring equipment. When gear gets old, worn down, or obsolete, the Pentagon ends up retiring it and re-equipping our soldiers with updated equipment.
A lot of that gear ends up on the surplus market. Take a walk through any army surplus store and you will see what I mean. But a lot of the equipment is either not allowed to be sold to civilians (such as fully-automatic M16 or M4 rifles) or too expensive for the average American to buy (such as a 400k Mine Resistant Armored Personnel Carrier, MRAP, or BearCat armored vehicle).
After the First Gulf War, the Pentagon found itself sitting on a mountain of military equipment with nowhere to sell it. Faced with the prospect of having to otherwise destroy billions-worth of military equipment, Congress passed a law in 1991 authorizing the Department of Defense to give that retired and obsolete gear to American police departments. That is the moment that the Pentagon's 1033 Program was born.
Since then, the Pentagon has transferred more than 7.4 billion-worth of equipment to America's law enforcement agencies. It is a win-win: the Federal government doesn't have to pay to store or destroy the gear and local and state law enforcement get to save a ton by not having to purchase the equipment at retail prices.
Over the years, the Pentagon has transferred all types of equipment to police, including swat uniforms, riot gear, firearms, ammunition, less-than-lethal weapons (like tear gas launchers), and even helicopters and armored SWAT vehicles. The truth is that the 1033 Program has saved American taxpayers more than 7.4 billion because police would have otherwise had to purchase all of this equipment new...
Democrats call this the "militarization" of America's police departments. Joe Biden has even said police departments' participation in the 1033 Program has made them "the enemy" in many inner-city neighborhoods. He has also promised to abolish parts of the program if he is elected.
But Joe Hiden' might not need to wait that long. Democrats are pushing an amendment to the NDAA that would put an end to most of the 1033 Program. The Democrats' plan has two parts: (1) restrict what equipment police departments can receive and (2) claw back any equipment that has already been disbursed whenever a police department becomes the subject of a civil rights violation.
I need to explain what this means, because it is truly radical. Democrats want to cut off police departments' ability to receive armored vehicles, night vision equipment, weapons, ammunition, less-than-lethal options (like tear gas launchers), or protective equipment (like riot shields or batons). Basically, police departments would only be allowed to receive the kind of gear that is sold to the public in surplus stores...
The clawback provision is truly terrifying. If a police department, or one of its members, becomes the subject of a civil rights investigation, that police department would have to give up its already-received 1033 Program equipment. So in the case of Kenosha, if this amendment had already become law, when that police officer shot an indicted sex offender who was reaching for or holding a knife, his department would have been forced to surrender their armored vehicles and riot gear. This is insane because as we saw, that was the very moment that police needed that equipment. County Sheriffs in one of those armored vehicles were stopped in Kenosha by rioters armed with rifles. They survived because they were in an armored vehicle. But under the Democrats' plan, right when departments need the equipment most would be when many would be forced to surrender it...
This is an attempt to defund the police. Make no mistake about it. There is no other way to describe an effort to claw back billions-worth of equipment and force police departments to pay more to equip their officers...
Here is the bad news. This radical proposal has majority support in both the House and the Senate!
In the House, Democrats are all on-board with defunding the police like this. It is not even a question. In the Senate, this same amendment was introduced and the vote was 51-49, with a majority of Senators supporting it. The Republicans who flipped and joined the Democrats were Daines (MT), Gardner (CO), Murkowski (AK), and Paul (KY).
Under the Senate's rules, any amendment needs 60 votes in order to "end debate" and ultimately pass, so the attempt to defund the 1033 program failed in that vote. But here is where it gets complicated. Because this is a spending bill, if the House and Senate pass different versions of the bill (which they have), then we enter a process known as "reconciliation."
The reconciliation rules state that when both chambers cannot agree on a spending package, they can come up with a compromise bill and that compromise bill only needs 51 votes in the Senate to pass.
Democrats are holding firm with their demand to defund the police and shut down most of the Pentagon's 1033 program. Republicans are already caving. They are offering to ban the transfer of weapons and vehicles. But Democrats say that isn't enough. They want to completely gut the program and defund the police...
As I said, Congress is facing a hard deadline to pass this bill. Unless you rise up now, the Republicans will surrender on this. Right now, the GOP is negotiating over how much of this funding to pull from police departments.
They will sign off on a plan to defund the police in order to avoid being blamed for a government shutdown and it is up to YOU to stop them!
Stand with the Blue!
Max McGuire
Advocacy Director
Conservative Daily
No comments yet - make the first one!