[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 116 (Wednesday, August 17, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: August 17, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                                 CRIME

  Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, one of the most extravagantly oversold 
provisions in the crime bill is the proposal that allegedly would put 
100,000 new cops on the street. While few dispute the merits of adding 
to the ranks of our State and local police forces, it is also important 
to level with the American people.
  The Heritage Foundation has concluded that the crime bill provides 
full funding for only 20,000 new police officers, not the 100,000 
claimed by President Clinton.
  This 20,000 figure is consistent with the analysis of Princeton 
University Prof. John Diiulio, who recently had this to say about the 
crime bill:

       The bill calls for 100,000 new cops. But when you read the 
     relevant titles of the bill, what you discover is that that 
     really means about 20,000 fully-funded positions * * * and if 
     you are stouthearted enough to look at this bill in light of 
     the relevant academic literature, you know that it takes 10 
     police officers to put the equivalent of one police officer 
     on the streets around the clock * * * so that 20,000 funded 
     positions becomes 2,000 around-the-clock cops. And 2,000 
     around-the-clock cops gets distributed over at least 200 
     jurisdictions for an average actual street enforcement 
     strength increase of about 10 cops per city.

  But, Mr. President, let us put Professor Diiulio's comments aside for 
a moment and assume that 100,000 new cops will, in fact, be hired as a 
result of the crime bill.
  The Heritage Foundation estimates that creating 100,000 new police 
positions through the crime bill will saddle the States with a $28 
billion unfunded liability over the next 6 years. Twenty-eight billion 
dollars is the difference between the total cost of hiring 100,000 cops 
for 6 years--$37 billion--and the amount of funding actually provided 
in the crime bill, nearly $9 billion.
  Heritage estimates that the crime bill could result in 875 new cops 
for my own State of Kansas. While the crime bill would provide $77 
million for this purpose, Kansas would still be stuck with a $250 
million tab.
  So, Mr. President, let us not oversell the crime bill. Let us not 
sell the American people a crime bill of goods.
  Again, I support trying to put more cops on the street. More police 
generally means more security. But the crime bill will not put 100,000 
new police officers on the street, as the President claims. It fully 
funds only a fraction of this amount--about one-fifth; 20,000 new cops. 
And even if we assume that 100,000 police positions will be created, it 
is the States and localities who will pay the lion's share of the cost.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Heritage Foundation 
study be reprinted in the Record immediately after my remarks.
  There being no objection, the study was ordered to be printed in the 
Record, as follows:

The Crime Bill's Faulty Math Means a $28 Billion Unfunded Liability to 
                               the States

                          (By Scott A. Hodge)

       President Clinton is making a last-ditch effort to revive 
     the $33 billion crime bill that Congress rejected last week 
     on a procedural vote. Among the arguments Clinton is using to 
     sway lawmakers is the claim that if Congress passes this 
     measure, the bills' $8.8 billion Community Policing grant 
     program will add 100,000 new cops to local police forces over 
     the next six years.
       Clinton is wrong. The numbers just don't add up. The crime 
     bill provides full funding for only 20,000 permanent new 
     cops. Meanwhile, it saddles state governments with a $28 
     billion unfunded liability over the next six years if the 
     bill is to result in 100,000 new officers. States such as 
     California and New York will have to raise some $3 billion 
     each to meet the Administration's promise.
       The reason this happens is that the Community Policing 
     grant program is intended only to provide ``seed'' money to 
     local governments to hire new police officers, not to fully 
     fund these positions. So the bill assumes that once these new 
     officers have been hired with Washington's help, state and 
     local governments will find the billions of new dollars 
     needed to keep them on permanently. The bill provides just 
     one-fifth of the funds needed over six years to hire and keep 
     100,000 new cops on the street in high-crime areas.\1\ Thus, 
     if cities do not cut back on the other services or raise 
     taxes, the funds provided in the bill can keep at most just 
     20,000 permanent cops on the street over the six-year life of 
     the bill. Even more problematic for state and local 
     officials, if they use federal funding to hire the new police 
     officers and then cannot raise the funding needed to keep 
     them, officials will have to start laying off cops after the 
     first year of the bill.
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     Footnotes at end of article.
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       Another way to look at this financial sleight-of-hand is to 
     calculate how much funding the bill provides per police 
     officer per year. On average, the bill authorizes $1.475 
     billion per year for 100,000 new officers. This amounts to 
     just $14,750 per cop per year--roughly the poverty level for 
     a family of four. Police officers cannot, of course, be hired 
     for minimum wage salaries, and so state and local governments 
     would have to absorb the remaining cost of hiring and 
     keeping each of these new cops.
       To give taxpayers a better understanding of the total cost 
     of the crime bill, Heritage Foundation analysts have 
     calculated the amount of new resources states will have to 
     raise over six years if they choose to apply for the federal 
     Community Policing grants. As is seen in the following table, 
     these calculations show that state governments will have to 
     raise a total of over $28 billion of their own funds to meet 
     Clinton's promise.
       Eight states (California, New York, Texas, Florida, 
     Illinois, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Ohio) will have to 
     absorb more than $1 billion each in new costs over the next 
     six years to fully fund their share of the 100,000 new cops. 
     At the bottom end of the scale, the fourteen states likely to 
     receive the minimum amount of federal aid for new police 
     officers--and, of course, the fewest number of new cops at 
     500 per state--will still find themselves liable for over 
     $143 million each in added expenditures to meet the bill's 
     lofty goal.
       Large states, such as California and New York, will be 
     particularly hard hit. Although California is estimated to 
     receive 10,827 new cops, it will have to absorb some $3.1 
     billion in new costs to keep them on the street. Similarly, 
     New York is estimated to receive 10,407 new cops but will be 
     burdened by some $3 billion in new costs. Neither of these 
     states is in the fiscal condition to bear this expense. Texas 
     could hire nearly 6,400 new officers but would face an 
     unfunded liability of over $1.8 billion by doing so.
       In reality, the unfunded liability for some large states 
     will be even higher than these estimates suggest. This 
     analysis assumes that the Community Policing grants will be 
     distributed proportionately according to a state's share of 
     the national police force (see technical notes in the 
     appendix). But the crime bill allows 75 percent of the 
     Community Policing funds to be distributed at the discretion 
     of the Attorney General. This means that the Administration 
     may play politics with these funds and reward loyal mayors 
     and local politicians in politically important states--or 
     House members the White House needs to win passage of the 
     bill.\2\ But, ironically, this will raise the taxpayer 
     liability in these states even higher.
       The dirty little secret of the crime bill is that it will 
     not put 100,000 new police officers on America's streets 
     unless the states raise taxes or cut other spending to 
     finance a massive $28 billion unfunded liability. Once most 
     states realize the magnitude of these new costs it is likely 
     that far fewer permanent cops will actually be hired. However 
     the computation is made, the result is the same: Bill 
     Clinton's crime bill actually funds only a fraction of the 
     promised 100,000 new cops.

                                THE CRIME BILL'S UNFUNDED LIABILITY TO THE STATES                               
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                                             Crime bill's                       
                                                      Estimated new cops   contribution for   Liability to State
                        State                         added per state by    new cops over 6    taxpayers for new
                                                          crime bill             years         cops over 6 years
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
California..........................................              10,827        $958,224,360      $3,102,048,353
New York............................................              10,407         920,993,894       2,981,522,608
Texas...............................................               6,386         565,124,889       1,829,472,098
Florida.............................................               5,630         498,252,127       1,612,985,699
Illinois............................................               5,488         485,723,575       1,572,427,165
New Jersey..........................................               4,327         382,895,805       1,239,544,047
Pennsylvania........................................               4,129         365,378,435       1,182,835,273
Ohio................................................               3,683         325,952,244       1,055,201,331
Michigan............................................               3,106         274,917,767         889,988,026
Massachusetts.......................................               2,707         239,592,416         775,629,687
Georgia.............................................               2,605         230,502,758         746,203,844
North Carolina......................................               2,484         219,847,031         711,708,184
Maryland............................................               2,190         193,805,079         627,402,882
Virginia............................................               2,148         190,075,574         615,329,401
Missouri............................................               1,885         166,859,004         540,170,675
Wisconsin...........................................               1,808         159,981,217         517,905,294
Indiana.............................................               1,743         154,217,437         499,246,278
Tennessee...........................................               1,732         153,281,024         496,214,842
Louisiana...........................................               1,651         146,128,771         473,060,936
Alabama.............................................               1,443         127,674,988         413,320,725
Washington..........................................               1,399         123,767,888         400,672,317
Arizona.............................................               1,380         122,137,239         395,393,435
Connecticut.........................................               1,324         117,132,276         379,190,929
South Carolina......................................               1,273         112,660,100         364,713,205
Minnesota...........................................               1,266         112,062,733         362,779,357
Colorado............................................               1,225         108,446,244         351,071,739
Oklahoma............................................               1,157         102,391,853         331,471,932
Kentucky............................................               1,046          92,543,378         299,589,580
Oregon..............................................                 898          79,498,185         257,358,530
Kansas..............................................                 875          77,415,474         250,616,196
District of Columbia................................                 830          73,459,939         237,810,989
Iowa................................................                 818          72,394,366         234,361,423
Mississippi.........................................                 762          67,453,984         218,367,981
Arkansas............................................                 696          61,561,043         199,290,835
New Mexico..........................................                 595          52,648,980         170,439,920
Nevada..............................................                 565          50,001,194         161,868,271
Nebraska............................................                 514          45,496,727         147,286,015
Utah................................................                 500          44,250,000         143,250,000
Hawaii..............................................                 500          44,250,000         143,250,000
Rhode Island........................................                 500          44,250,000         143,250,000
West Virginia.......................................                 500          44,250,000         143,250,000
New Hampshire.......................................                 500          44,250,000         143,250,000
Maine...............................................                 500          44,250,000         143,250,000
Idaho...............................................                 500          44,250,000         143,250,000
Montana.............................................                 500          44,250,000         143,250,000
Delaware............................................                 500          44,250,000         143,250,000
Alaska..............................................                 500          44,250,000         143,250,000
South Dakota........................................                 500          44,250,000         143,250,000
Wyoming.............................................                 500          44,250,000         143,250,000
North Dakota........................................                 500          44,250,000         143,250,000
Vermont.............................................                 500          44,250,000         143,250,000
                                                     -----------------------------------------------------------
      Total.........................................             100,000       8,850,000,000      28,650,000,000
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

                            technical notes

       These calculations have been made using a conservative 
     estimate of the average cost of hiring and keeping a police 
     officer on the beat in small and large cities. In small 
     cities, such as Elkhart, Indiana, the total cost of putting a 
     permanent cop on the beat is $50,000 to $55,000 per year. In 
     large cities, such as San Francisco, this cost rises to 
     $70,000 to $75,000. The average used in this analysis is 
     $62,500. This figure includes salary and fringe benefits, 
     training, and some administrative costs. It does not include 
     equipment costs such as police cars and radios. In most 
     cities, a new police cruiser is needed for every three or 
     four officers hired.
       This analysis assumes that the Community Policing funds 
     and, thus, the 100,000 new cops, will be distributed 
     proportionately among the states according to the current 
     state-by-state distribution of roughly 534,000 police 
     officers nationwide. The source for these data is the 
     ``Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics--1992,'' 
     published by the Justice Department's Bureau of Justice 
     Statistics.
       The crime bill requires that no state receive less than 0.5 
     percent of the Community Policing funds. Thus fourteen small 
     states, whose share of the nation's police force is less than 
     0.5 percent, were automatically allotted this minimum share 
     of funds for new officers. The remaining funds and new cops 
     were then distributed proportionately among the other states.
       The federal contribution per state for new cops is based 
     upon the $14,750 per cop per year the bill authorizes. The 
     state liability is then based upon the residual amount of 
     $47,750 ($62,500-$14,750).
     \1\For more information on these calculations, see Scott A. 
     Hodge, ``The Crime Bill: Few Cops, Many Social Workers,'' 
     Heritage Foundation Issue Bulletin No. 201, August 2, 1994.
     \2\Last year, Congress passed an emergency supplemental bill 
     which included $150 million in aid to hire 2,000 new police 
     officers. Nearly 45 percent of these funds went to four key 
     states: California, Florida, Illinois, and Texas.

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