Defund the police

Amazing how the Democrats in Congress with their carbon copy media are now trying to say defund police is a Republican idea. I guess NYC will have to paint over those defund police signs in the street?

Will all the videos of AOC and the squad and their co-conspirators disappear? Or maybe the ignorant voters could look at the federal budget and see Washington DC doesn't fund the local police. 

From USAFacts: "State and local governments spent $193 billion on law enforcement and corrections in 2017. Local governments were responsible for $129 billion, or two-thirds of that spending. Law enforcement spending ranks behind education ($684 billion) as the second-largest spending category for local government budgets." 

Infrastructure is also state, local and private developer spending--so when you see Biden charming CNN and MSNBC with his lies about that, just look it up.

The definition of food insecurity. It isn't hunger.

USAFacts is doing a feature on "food insecurity." That term was invented because there is not enough actual hunger in the U.S. to measure by population and put in a graph. However, I read far enough to get to the "food desert" definition. Notice: "easy and ample access." 

"What is a food desert? The Department of Agriculture defines them as an area where low-income people do not have easy and ample access to food retailers. This limits people’s access to affordable, nutritious food."

Here's what happens. When a chain store with jobs and fresh fruits and vegetables plans to expand in a poor neighborhood, they are run out of town by organized protests from the Left and tied up for years in the courts battling city codes. It's like when AOC got an Amazon distribution center run out of her district. And what company would ever invest in Portland or Minneapolis after the anti-police, pro-crime riots of the last year?

https://usafacts.org/articles/which-cities-have-the-most-people-living-in-food-deserts/?

https://www.salon.com/2020/06/03/kroger-grocery-closed-protests-food-inequality-desert/?

Looters Leave More Food Deserts In Black Communities | BlackDoctor.org - Where Wellness & Culture Connect

Chicago's George Floyd reaction looting foists 'food deserts' on locals: 'What did we accomplish?' - Washington Times

What Really Happens When a Grocery Store Opens in a ‘Food Desert’? (nyu.edu)  a paragraph summary follows:

"Over the past decade, federal and local governments in the United States have spent hundreds of millions of dollars encouraging grocery stores to open in food deserts. The federal Healthy Food Financing Initiative has leveraged over $1 billion in financing for grocers in under-served areas. . . We studied the grocery purchases of about 10,000 households in those neighborhoods. While it’s true that these households buy less healthy groceries than people in wealthier neighborhoods, they do not start buying healthier groceries after a new supermarket opened. Instead, we find that people shop at the new supermarket, but they buy the same kinds of groceries they had been buying before."

Obesity not race is reflected in Covid deaths

Obesity, not race, is creating the unequal results for recovery from Covid19 and a higher death rate. Because blacks and Hispanics are more likely to be overweight, their illness and death rates are higher. But you'd have to go into the statistics or read the last paragraph of an article on "health disparities" to find that out. In 2017-2019

• 6 states had an obesity prevalence of 35 percent or higher among non-Hispanic White adults.
• 15 states had an obesity prevalence of 35 percent or higher among Hispanic adults.
• 34 states and the District of Columbia had an obesity prevalence of 35 percent or higher among non-Hispanic Black adults.

80% of Covid victims are overweight or obese, which leads to the other co-morbidities like diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease. And the rate is also high for whites. My state, Ohio has 30-34% obesity rate, according to this CDC map. Very few articles report differences within a racial group and why. No way to make it all about race if the reporter/researcher reported the truth on lifestyle vs. race.

Almost 72% of Americans are overweight or obese according to USAFacts compared to about 14% in the early 1960s. Just a quick observation: we have more government involved in our food system, there are many more weight loss programs, and in the 70s more women began working outside the home causing the restaurant industry to boom and fewer meals at home.

https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/prevalence-maps.html?

Covid: CDC study finds about 78% of people hospitalized were overweight or obese (cnbc.com)

https://usafacts.org/articles/obesity-rate-nearly-triples-united-states-over-last-50-years/?

Prepping for the election debate

USAFacts.org is an excellent source of what local, state, federal entities spend using all the statistical sources that are published such as crime, health, and education.  But because most of these organizations lean left even with interpreting dry statistics, one can still see a bias in how the “facts” are presented.  Today it is outlining which topics might come up in the debate between Biden and Trump, such as “defund” the police.” US Census Bureau’s 2017 State & Local Government Finance Historical Datasets is the source of the data.

It begins with a graph you should be familiar with—the drastic drop in crime since its peak in the early 90s. Then it goes on to break out how much counties and states spend locally on their responsibilities like education, law enforcement, public health, etc.  Education, of course is the biggie—almost 50% of local budgets go for that (very little comes from the federal government). The second highest expense at the local level is law enforcement, but it’s only 9.2%.

So the way this is framed is that it law enforcement is the second highest expense, even though it pales in comparison with education. However, adding together what is traditionally called “social safety net” –public health, aid to disadvantaged, and children’s services—which total 10.4%, law enforcement is actually third.  In per capita spending that is $2,106 for education, $451 for social safety net, and $397 for police protection. 

And I’m sure its no shock to any of us to find out that large counties and metropolitan areas spend more on law enforcement than smaller counties. Yet, NYC actually spends a lower percentage of its budget on policing than the average—7.3%.

“In the 25 most populous counties—counting New York City’s five boroughs as a single county—local governments spent $573 per resident on law enforcement – which includes both police services and corrections. In the next 303 most populous counties, all with at least 200,000 residents, law enforcement spending stood at $388 per person. . .

Among the largest 25 counties, Broward County, Fla. spends the highest share of its local government budgets (18.2% or $723 per person) on law enforcement. The county spent less than average on education (37.4% of the total budget) but higher than average spending on child and social services (4.4%).

New York City, where the city government oversees all five of its boroughs, spends 7.3% of its budget on law enforcement. The city government spends 30.6% of its money on education and 12.4% on social services and aid to the disadvantaged combined. “

Some large metropolitan areas don’t follow the trends in police funding.

“Bexar County, Texas, home to San Antonio and nearly 2 million residents, spent $298 per person on law enforcement and $3,906 per person in total. The city of St. Louis, which as an independent city functions as its own county, spent $795 per person on law enforcement and $6,764 per person in total. St. Louis has a population of just 308,000.”

Is it different policing or different people committing the crimes? Would the people of St. Louis be safer if the law enforcement budget was cut or “defunded?”

Read the article here: https://usafacts.org/articles/police-funding-local-governments/?