Columns
Friday, February 24, 2006
an unconscionable retreat in the war on meth
By Senator Tom Harkin
When President Bush released his budget for 2007 in February, Iowa law enforcement officials were shocked. This proposed budget would eliminate support for more than half of all federally-funded state and local law enforcement positions dedicated to drug enforcement efforts across Iowa. “We are just beginning to make significant inroads against the meth epidemic,” said Story County Sheriff Paul Fitzgerald, “and now the White House wants to kill our funding.”
Recently in Cedar Rapids, I held a roundtable with law enforcement officers from eastern Iowa. They told me that local police forces are already stretched to the limit. They are struggling to meet major new homeland security demands. And they are fighting a meth epidemic that is ravaging communities and families across Iowa.
Now is the time when we should be increasing federal help for law enforcement. But, instead, the President’s budget proposes to gut it. Specifically, the President’s blueprint eliminates Byrne Justice Assistance Grant funding, which has been critical to providing local law enforcement the resources they need to fight meth here in Iowa. Cuts to this program over the last three years have already led to a nearly 58 percent reduction in arrest rates in our state.
The President’s budget would also completely eliminate funding in Iowa for the COPS Meth Hot Spots program, which has been incredibly successful in putting more police officers on our streets. This program is absolutely crucial to our fight against meth. In fact, without funding obtained from the Meth Hot Spots program last year, we would have already had to layoff law enforcement officials throughout our state’s drug task forces.
The funding cuts proposed by the President come at a time when Iowa is being flooded by high-potency meth from Mexico. As Marvin Van Haaften, Iowa’s Drug Policy Coordinator, said, “Cuts of this magnitude would set drug enforcement back 20 years.” Indeed, it’s as though the White House has declared war on law enforcement, rather than declaring war on drugs and crime.
The Administration’s spokespeople have a stock response. They say, “We’re looking at a record budget deficit. We’ve got to make tough choices.” But this rings hollow when, in the same budget document, the President calls for hundreds of billions in additional tax cuts. The truth is that these are the wrong choices and priorities. They don’t reflect Iowa values, and they don’t reflect plain common sense. I will do everything I can here in the Senate to fight these cuts. It is simply unacceptable to slash law enforcement funds in Iowa at the moment when we need them the most.
