THREAD: This is a huge story: Capitol police today requested a budget increase of $103.7 million, a 20% increase from the increase they just got for 2021. Here are a few things you may not know about the Capitol police: (1)
Capitol Police already have a $515 million dollar budget. Now they want $619 million! This is already more than 10% of the entire budget for the whole Legislative Branch of the US government. (2)
https://twitter.com/danielschuman/status/1367128321830637571
52% of their time is spent on traffic charges, and 14% of their arrests are minor drug arrests. They mostly arrest very poor people in the surrounding DC community (DC has the largest racial disparity in arrests of any US jurisdiction). (3) firstbranchforecast.com/2021/01/06/a-p…
This budget request would make the Capitol Police larger than almost every other local police department in the country. They'd be in the top 10, larger than the police budget for the entire city of DC. (4)
When you expand police budgets, the money goes to police unions and corporations who make weapons, surveillance, and software. Do not forget what they do with those weapons power: they target the most vulnerable people, like all police. Read more here: (5) slate.com/news-and-polit…
Democrats are supporting this increase to the police bureaucracy. Here is the video of the budget hearing today, where Democrats say that it is "clear" that Capitol Police deserve more money because of what happened in January. (6) c-span.org/video/?509427-…
Whatever problems led to the events of January 6, insufficient funding for the Capitol Police is not among them. As usual, monumental failures of police are used by those same police to get more money and military equipment. The cycle goes on until we stop it. (end)
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