$603 mill. to Iraqi police, -700 to USA cops?

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/38672.html


:crackhead:

 

I hopefully they cut the payments to the Virginia because we have way to many cops already. They don't do anything for crime in N. VA they just hand out lots and lots of tickets. I bet we have more police per capita then Iraq does. I live in the middle of nowhere and I can't drive 10 miles without driving though a speed trap.

 

Not sure why the Fed needs to fund local cops anyway.

But yes, there is still more capital leaving the country than there is staying in it.

 

Because local municipal government can not afford to properly fund a police department without jacking taxes through the roof. I'm not talking big cities. Mostly the smaller municipalities with low tax revenues.

crown vic 30k
light kit 4k
radio, computer 6k
3 officers to man the vehicle 24 hours a day. uniforms, equipment, training, etc etc...... maintenance, fuel....blah blah blah......

I'm curious how much it coats to equip, train, feed, house, etc, an infantry soldier for a year... and compare it to a cop??????

 

Gotcha. Just the feds making sure they can control everyone. State government, what? Who needs that anyway???

 

State and local governments are going broke paying for Federal mandates. Tax cuts at the federal level simply mean the costs of the programs supported are passed to states and local because no one ever cuts the programs.

Federal and state agencies come up with regulations that localities must follow regardless of cost. An example in Georgia is the creation of the Public Defender's office. State says we have to have it and promised funding. Governors change, funding is cut, program remains. Results - multimillion dollar program that has to be funded locally. Taxpayers are not happy when taxes are raised. Local government is forced to cut in other areas. Taxpayers are really unhappy now because they don't want to lose the services that have just been cut to pay for the program the state mandated. You can't cut revenue and increase services indefinitely.

 

But, but, but.. . Barack says he wants to change all that!!!

 

Everybody wants to change all that. No one ever does, particularly not the Pres because Congress controls the money. Every candidate that has run for office in my lifetime has campaigned on change. Every one of them has succeeded in changing something, but rarely for the better.

 

What federally mandated programs are paid for by states and/or cities?

I was trying to think of some but couldn't for some reason.

 

Environmental regulations, prison and jail standards, record keeping, education, public housing, the list goes on and on.

 

Come on now. Record keeping? That's just whining.

I was trying to think of some but couldn't. I don't have kids so I usually don't think of schools and don't know what the feds force. What is it in schools that the feds mandate that costs money that wouldn't already be needed? When I was in school, we received money from the federal government to meet certain accreditation items. I don't remember the names of the programs but I remember them being done and Dad(School Board VP) talking about the moneys. Don't know how things are now though.

As for Environmental regs, if the states would reglulate themselves then this wouldn't be necessary but major environmental cleanup sites are not locally funded. They fall into the Superfund programs where the money comes from those that benefitted from the site's operation. I've not seen a local government fund a cleanup project that they didn't cause. Of course it's happened but just none of the ones I've been involved with. Following the regs isn't that expensive. Cleaning up after fucking up is very expensive.

Public housing I have no clue about. I was thinking those things were all locally driven other than the equal opportunity.

Most of the items you mention have come about because the states just weren't getting the job done. OSHA regs are actually easy to follow with a little common sense and OSHA takes costs to companies and states very much into consideration when changing regs. Most regs change drastically from draft to implementation because of the costs associated with them. The latest fall protection regs are a perfect example. There are actually laws that keep the federal government from putting into place regs that cause undo monetary strains on companies. That being said, the EPA gets away with a lot because of politics and the fact that the people in the public's eye with the power believe every damn thing the EPA says. The EPA was getting out of control. They are finally being drawn back in some because nothing was getting done. They need a lot more restraint on them though.

 

you ought to be familiar enough with federal paperwork to know that it is way above reasonable.

 

That's just it, I'm in the only field that has more paperwork than the medical field. To me complaining about paperwork anywhere else is just whining.

 

It's not a matter of the ..."Feds fund local cops...", but a matter of the elimination of something called shared revenue; Federal tax dollars going back to the states to fund programs like the one in the story. Shared revenue was all but eliminated after 9/11. The surface story I'm intereted in is that crime always increases during an economical spiral. Yet, we'll not only have decreased funding for the forces that exist, but zero monies to add more cops. Got your CCP?

 

Working on it. Should be a couple months, no more.

 

what he said--a shit-ton of them. and then there may be state unfunded mandates as well. an example--florida has a state minimum class size law. the state just cut funding to the school districts, which are operated by the counties. so schools are required to hire teachers to keep class sizes at 2X kids per class with less money. it's insane. teachers are actually being laid off and districts are telling the state to *($# off about the class-size law. they can't do that with many other unfunded mandates without risking losing whatever other funds they get.

your city's/county's annual report will frequently list the major superceding requirements (the feds or state make them do it) because they get to pass the buck.