3 ms·

The reason social services are underdeveloped is because police spending has swollen to consume massive portions of municipal, state, and federal budgets. This

The reason social services are underdeveloped is because police spending has swollen to consume massive portions of municipal, state, and federal budgets. This is thanks to decades of conservative politicians beating the drums of "wasteful" welfare spending and "fighting crime by spending more on police." Forty percent of Uvalde's budget was going to the police - $4.3M for 15,000 residents, or $2900/person. That doesn't include the half a million dollars for their school police force. New York City has a budget of about $100BN, and $11BN goes to NYPD - $1300 for every single person in the city.

goldenkey 4y ago
Wow, that's insanity. Have you ever thought about making a simple single page app showing comparative stats? I'm curious how other major cities like LA and Chicago stack up.
dionidium 4y ago
I think this characterization is mostly wrong on the facts. First of all, U.S. spending on police is pretty typical, relative to our peers (as a percentage of GDP): https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F4e89f4a9-a273-43ae-a7fd-397a57a50c81_968x1464.png https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_pr... Second, spending on police has actually been trending down for quite some time: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=Q7WX https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=Q7WX And the number of officers per capita has remained remarkably stable over time (contra suggestions that the number of police has risen dramatically). See Table 1 in this PDF: https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/nsleed.pdf https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/nsleed.pdf Third, we spend much more on schools than on police: https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fa8d14105-0bf8-485d-83fe-f5b5707018a6_1220x1020.png https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_pr... Despite the prevalence of memes to the contrary: https://twitter.com/RCAFDM/status/1532739121562656770?s=20&t=k1P2Bd28yrXjWGp7Agjnng https://twitter.com/RCAFDM/status/1532739121562656770?s=20&t... https://twitter.com/CharlesFLehman/status/1532700442286759937 https://twitter.com/CharlesFLehman/status/153270044228675993... Fourth, because spending in the U.S. is split amongst federal, state, and local governments, looking purely at local budgets is often more obfuscatory than explanatory. If we look at combined state and local spending, the picture looks quite a bit more reasonable: https://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/2020-06/state_local_chart.png https://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/2020-06/state_loca... That graph in words: > Overall, police spending was 4 percent of state and local direct general expenditures in 2017. (This data included federal transfers; if we look at just own-source funds, police spending was 5 percent of state and local expenditures.) > This is far less than what state and local governments spent on public welfare (mostly Medicaid in the Census accounting) and K–12 education, but more than many other services, including housing and community development (and others not listed on the chart). Source: https://www.urban.org/urban-wire/what-police-spending-data-can-and-cannot-explain-amid-calls-defund-police https://www.urban.org/urban-wire/what-police-spending-data-c... Obviously people can disagree about how much we should spend and on what, but, generally, the U.S. spends a pretty typical amount on police, that amount is significantly less than on various other social services, and the amount has largely not been growing.

goldenkey 4y ago

Wow, that's insanity. Have you ever thought about making a simple single page app showing comparative stats? I'm curious how other major cities like LA and Chicago stack up.

dionidium 4y ago

I think this characterization is mostly wrong on the facts. First of all, U.S. spending on police is pretty typical, relative to our peers (as a percentage of GDP): https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F4e89f4a9-a273-43ae-a7fd-397a57a50c81_968x1464.png https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_pr... Second, spending on police has actually been trending down for quite some time: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=Q7WX https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=Q7WX And the number of officers per capita has remained remarkably stable over time (contra suggestions that the number of police has risen dramatically). See Table 1 in this PDF: https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/nsleed.pdf https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/nsleed.pdf Third, we spend much more on schools than on police: https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fa8d14105-0bf8-485d-83fe-f5b5707018a6_1220x1020.png https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_pr... Despite the prevalence of memes to the contrary: https://twitter.com/RCAFDM/status/1532739121562656770?s=20&t=k1P2Bd28yrXjWGp7Agjnng https://twitter.com/RCAFDM/status/1532739121562656770?s=20&t... https://twitter.com/CharlesFLehman/status/1532700442286759937 https://twitter.com/CharlesFLehman/status/153270044228675993... Fourth, because spending in the U.S. is split amongst federal, state, and local governments, looking purely at local budgets is often more obfuscatory than explanatory. If we look at combined state and local spending, the picture looks quite a bit more reasonable: https://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/2020-06/state_local_chart.png https://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/2020-06/state_loca... That graph in words: > Overall, police spending was 4 percent of state and local direct general expenditures in 2017. (This data included federal transfers; if we look at just own-source funds, police spending was 5 percent of state and local expenditures.) > This is far less than what state and local governments spent on public welfare (mostly Medicaid in the Census accounting) and K–12 education, but more than many other services, including housing and community development (and others not listed on the chart). Source: https://www.urban.org/urban-wire/what-police-spending-data-can-and-cannot-explain-amid-calls-defund-police https://www.urban.org/urban-wire/what-police-spending-data-c... Obviously people can disagree about how much we should spend and on what, but, generally, the U.S. spends a pretty typical amount on police, that amount is significantly less than on various other social services, and the amount has largely not been growing.