President Biden’s 2023 Budget Increases Funding for Police

President Biden’s 2023 budget plan, released Monday, increases funding for the police, cementing his party’s turn away from the anti-police rhetoric and policies many lawmakers and activists embraced after the murder of George Floyd two years ago.

The plan sent to Congress allocates more than $32 billion to fighting crime, especially violent crime, with $20.6 billion going to the Department of Justice and $3.2 billion in discretionary resources for funding local and state law enforcement, much of it in the form of grants to hire more police officers. About $30 billion in mandatory resources will be funneled to “support law enforcement, crime prevention, and community violence intervention.”

The proposal directs $17.4 billion, an increase of $1.7 billion above the 2021 amount, for DOJ law enforcement. That sum includes $1.7 billion for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) to crack-down on gun-trafficking. U.S. Attorneys will be given $72.1 million to prosecute violent crimes.