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EXCLUSIVE: The White House is blasting House Republicans and accusing them of taking steps to defund the police, while claiming President Biden will protect law enforcement and support crime-reducing programs.
The comments come after the House Republican Study Committee released its Fiscal Year 2025 budget proposal, titled "Fiscal Sanity to Save America."
President Joe Biden speaks at a campaign event at Pullman Yards on March 9, 2024, in Atlanta, Georgia. (Megan Varner/Getty Images)
The White House is blasting the RSC for its proposal to reduce funding for Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS), a program created in the 1990s as a means to support state and local law enforcement agencies with expenses like salaries, court programs, and juvenile justice programs.
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"Conservatives support our men and women in blue but should question whether the government should involve itself in state and local law enforcement, even if it is only a matter of funding," the budget proposal states.
The White House is also hitting Republicans on the proposal to defend what the GOP calls the "constitutionally dubious red flag provisions in the so-called Bipartisan Safer Communities Act."
The White House is also accusing House Republicans of taking steps to support "abolishing the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF)."
"Violent crime surged under President Biden’s predecessor, but this president immediately fought back and has now reversed that trend with a historic reduction in crime," White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates told Fox News Digital.
Bates said Biden took "unprecedented action to hire waves of police officers, invest in crime effective crime reduction strategies, and mental health services."
A spokesperson for House Speaker Mike Johnson told Fox News Digital that House Republicans ‘oppose President Biden’s disastrous budget, which would raise taxes by $5 trillion and create the largest debt-to-GDP ratio in history.’ (AP/J. Scott Applewhite)
"Joe Biden won’t let Congressional Republicans defund the police, abolish law enforcement agencies like the FBI, gut crime prevention, or rollback landmark legislation critical to the fight against gun crime," Bates told Fox News Digital.
The White House touted Biden’s American Rescue Plan, saying communities across the country have been able to invest more than $15 billion "to keep their communities safe and prevent crime."
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"These include investments to avoid cuts to police budgets, hire more police officers for safe, effective, and accountable community policing, ensure first responders have the equipment they need to do their jobs, and expand community violence intervention and prevention programs," the White House said.
The White House said Biden’s budget also includes $1.2 billion over five years to launch a new "Violent Crime Reduction and Prevention Fund."
"The President’s budget also funds his Safer American Plan, including providing for hiring 100,000 additional police officers for effective, accountable community policing," the White House said, adding that Biden "wants to deploy $17.7 billion for DOJ law enforcement, including $2.0 billion, an increase of over 30 percent since 2021, for the ATF."
But the RSC is now calling out the White House, saying their budget proposal points out that COPS funding has drastically increased since the Trump administration as a result of Democrat-led cities "needing bailouts" after "defunding their own police departments."
The RSC told Fox News Digital that the White House is now latching onto an argument that actually "highlights how Democrats really are defunding the police around the country."
"Conservatives versus Biden on crime—the record couldn’t be more different," RSC Executive Director Joe Barry told Fox News Digital. "RSC’s budget doesn’t subsidize sanctuary cities or local entities who have embraced the defund the police movement."
Barry added: "We are committed to upholding the rule of law."
And a spokesperson for House Speaker Mike Johnson told Fox News Digital that House Republicans "oppose President Biden’s disastrous budget, which would raise taxes by $5 trillion and create the largest debt-to-GDP ratio in history."
"In contrast, the House GOP budget would reduce deficits by trillions and balance the budget over the next decade, while protecting Social Security and Medicare," the Johnson spokesperson told Fox News Digital.
Brooke Singman is a political correspondent and reporter for Fox News Digital, Fox News Channel and FOX Business.
