President Biden recently revoked an executive order issued by former President Donald Trump and the White House Office of Management and Budget that called to consider pulling funding from “anarchist jurisdictions” such as New York City, Portland, and Seattle.
Under the order, the Justice Department would determine whether these cities tolerated rising violent crimes and allowed violent protests by attempting to “defund” their police departments. They said cities were failing to take “reasonable measures to counteract criminal activities.”
After New York cut $1 billion from the NYPD budget amid a near-tripling of shootings, Trump and his administration said they would not allow federal tax dollars to fund cities that allow themselves to deteriorate into lawless zones. He routinely condemned states that allowed crime and social unrest following the death of George Floyd last summer.
Russ Vought, president of the Center for American Restoration, recommended Biden keeps the policy. He was Trump’s director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, as well as a leading advocate of the “anarchist” designation.
“My hope would be that the Biden administration would refuse to subsidize with taxpayer dollars failed leadership at the state and local levels that has caused unrest and destruction in many communities. It’s my hope, not my expectation,” Vought said.
Riots in Portland, Seattle, and New York City were widely ignored by mainstream liberal outlets and raged for more than 100 nights in a row, damaging countless buildings, small businesses, and communities. They were often shielded as “peaceful protests” that permitted anarchy, violence, and destruction in American cities.
Democrat Portland officials, however, were happy to get their taxpayer funding back after failing to restore order during last summer’s riots. “As many Portlanders expressed remorse on social media that the city was losing its edgy-sounding label, public officials were likely feeling a wave of relief. While many legal scholars doubted the president had the power to pull the funds, the threat loomed large at a time when the pandemic was blowing big holes in local budgets,” Oregon Public Broadcasting reported.
Biden also repealed other Trump actions, including a memo that promoted classical architecture for use in federal buildings. His order reads that the department and agency heads will take steps to “rescind any orders, rules, regulations, guidelines, or policies, or portions thereof, implementing or enforcing the Presidential actions identified.”
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki signaled earlier this month that they are a “new administration” and are reviewing a range of policies. “But I’m not going to have any comment on policies from a year ago from the prior administration,” she adds.
So much for “unity” if all the Biden Administration does is revoke every single policy issued by the Trump administration. They aren’t working for the future, they are looking to erase the last four years as a political move before moving onto the next thing.
