Federal
Drug
Budget:
Democratic
Senators
Urge
Restoring
Funds
for
Drug
Task
Forces
2/16/06
In an attempt at using tough-on-crime rhetoric to win partisan political advantage, a number of Democratic senators are criticizing the Bush administration for seeking further cuts in drug war spending programs beloved by law enforcement. In its 2007 budget proposal, the administration proposed cutting more than $1.2 billion in federal funding for state and local law enforcement, including the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant (JAG) program, which goes to fund the multi-jurisdictional anti-drug task forces that have run amok around the country for years. The JAG program has pumped about $500 million a year into the drug task forces, which have made a reputation for themselves as the focus of abuse, corruption, and bad policing. Texas narc Tom Coleman, the man whose perjury sent dozens of black residents of Tulia to prison on bogus charges, was working under the auspices of a JAG-funded drug task force. Other Texas task forces have managed to arrest dozens of blacks -- and no whites or Hispanics -- in another Texas town, Hearne, and have taken to buying $5 crack rocks from addicts, charging them as drug dealers, sending them off to prison for years, then claiming victories in the drug war for doing so. Sens. Tom Harkin (D-IA), Mark Dayton (D-MN), and Patrick Leahy (D-VT) have all loudly called for restored funding for the program, even though the Office of Management and Budget has found it is a failure and taxpayer watchdog groups such as Citizens Against Government Waste and the National Taxpayers Union have described it as little more than "pork barrel spending." All three senators called the grants essential "for a rural state" and cited the much-hyped methamphetamine "epidemic" as the reason the program must continue. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) was the latest to jump on the JAG bandwagon. In a press release last Friday, Reid joined his Democratic colleagues in criticizing the proposed cuts, and he hit the same talking points. "Once again, President Bush's budget will inhibit the ability of first responders to prepare for new threats and law enforcement to combat the growing methamphetamine problem," he said, adding that the programs are "specifically designed to assist rural communities." Reid attacked the Bush budget not only on the JAG program, but also for proposing deep cuts in the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) program, which, Reid noted, helps "combat methamphetamine use and distribution," among other things. And while the Bush budget proposes $40 for a Methamphetamine Cleanup Program, that isn't enough, Reid said. The Bush budget, with its cuts in just about everything except military spending, provides Democrats with countless opportunities for opposition based on their own principles. Too bad some this time are instead siding with Republican drug warriors like Rep. Mark Souder (R-IN) and self-interested law enforcement lobbyists to argue for more funding for a failed program that is a synecdoche for a failed drug policy.
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
