James Carafano, senior research fellow for homeland security at The Heritage Foundation, isn’t too pleased with the 70 Republicans who voted Wednesday to keep $280 million for the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) program.
And he’s not so pleased with the 132 Republicans who supported an amendment to restore $510 million for Homeland Security spending on first-responding firefighters either.
“No misstep sends the wrong message more than dumping money into these two programs,” Carafano writes on
Politico. “Heritage has studied the COPS program to death and found that rather than enhancing public safety, it has actually done the opposite.”
As for the firefighter money, “This program has also been proven demonstrably wasteful,” he argues. “Fire grants were ineffective at reducing fire casualties, failing to reduce deaths and injuries for either firefighters or civilians.”
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