By Jocelyn Bogen
February 12, 2007

Senator Joseph Biden (DE) offered a stinging rebuke of the current Administration at an afternoon January 24 Plenary Session. “At the very moment we surge into Baghdad, we’re retreating from our cities,” Biden told mayors.

Speaking about President George W. Bush’s State of the Union Address, Biden, a Democratic Presidential candidate, told mayors this was the first time he has heard the President actually lay out in stark terms his single most urgent initiative on Iraq. Biden remarked after hearing the President’s Iraq policy, “The silence was deafening, absolutely deafening.” While a Senate panel condemned his plan to pour more U.S. troops into Iraq, Biden added, “Mr. President, stop. Stop the escalation. Listen.”

Biden declared, “We need to drastically change the priorities of this nation!” Biden stated that the mayors are caught in a “perfect storm” brought on by three factors. The first cause for the storm is an Administration that is being driven by an ideological rationale of devolution of government. “We have devolved all decisions but war, peace, and national taxation policies down to the local level.” The second element for the storm, Biden added is “The dropping all of this on you [mayors] and all of the costs associated with it. It’s the tax policies that drain your capacity.”

The final cause is due to our participation in “a war of choice, not of necessity that occupies all of the intellectual, emotional, political capital of this administration at this moment. To be more precise, since 2000, 34 representative of you cities, and this is only a 2004 statistic, have had to drastically cut the number of law enforcement officers you have on the street, at the very moment that terror alerts have gone up, very moment we should be increasing you were decreasing the number of cops, “ said Biden.

Biden is the author of the historic 1994 Crime Bill, which helped reduce crime nationwide by allowing local police departments across the country to hire more than 100,000 new police officers through the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) program.

Biden has proposed the creation of a Homeland Security Trust Fund that will cost $160 million per year. This legislation would create a dedicated fund for the implementation of the 9/11 Commission recommendations, restoration of funding for local law enforcement and make other critical homeland security upgrades. Biden stated, “If anybody is going to find a terrorist putting serum gas into a facility, it’s not going to be a brave special forces person with night vision goggles; It’s going to be a local law enforcement/city cop coming home from their dinner break and notices someone coming out of a dumpster.”

Biden continued, “The legislation I am offering will ensure that we can make critical homeland security upgrades in a fiscally responsible manner. By taking back just some of the tax cuts promised to the wealthiest Americans, we could set aside $53.3 billion dollars over the next five years dedicated solely to making our homeland more secure.”

“This is all about setting the right priorities for America. Instead of giving a tax cut to the richest Americans who don’t need it, we should be focusing on the security of all Americans,” Biden said. In 2006 alone, the Bush tax cuts for millionaires exceed $60 billion, whereas the average budget for the Department of Homeland Security is roughly half of that amount — $34 billion. Biden’s legislation would take back some of the tax cuts for people making over $1 million a year in order to put $10 billion a year ($53.3 billion over 5 years) into a Homeland Security Trust Fund. The Trust Fund — to be used exclusively to protect our homeland — would be used to:

• Fully implement the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission;

• Hire 50,000 new police officers and 1,000 FBI agents;

• Require 100 percent cargo container scanning at our nation’s sea ports;

• Ensure emergency personnel can communicate effectively by freeing up critical spectrum for public safety use and providing interoperable equipment;

• Enhance research, development and deployment of new screening technology at sea and air ports; and,

• Invest in our public health system to ensure capacity to respond to biological, chemical, radiological attacks or pandemics.

“Our nation’s most fortunate are just as patriotic as anyone else. They are just as willing to sacrifice for the good of our nation. The problem is that no one has asked them to sacrifice. This legislation is about re-ordering our homeland security priorities.”