NYPD to see major cash boost after City Council approves $112B budget
The New York Police Department will see a massive cash boost next year after the City Council adopted a $112 billion budget despite dissent from Democratic socialists. The Big Apple's increase in police spending by roughly $72 million comes under a week after Squad progressive Congressman Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., a defund the police advocate, lost his reelection bid to a moderate. The budget was adopted 46-3, with three Democratic socialist members voting against the measure partly because of the money for NYPD 'pet projects.'
The boosted law enforcement budget may now indicate New Yorkers' desires to get tough on crime, especially after Bowman's ousting. And that could put other Squad Democrats ' races in jeopardy. Fellow Squad members Reps. Cori Bush of Missouri and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, who have both been outspoken about defunding the police, also face tough primary challenges that could see them kicked from Congress.
Bush, for example, is currently in a dead heat with St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell, new polling found. The survey of 400 registered voters in the Missouri 1st District by The Mellman Group put Bush at 42 percent, behind Bell's 43 percent. Bush is suddenly in a street fight with Bell after looking like a sure thing in January when she was ahead 45 percent to 29 percent.
And Omar is not off the hook either, facing a tough challenger in Don Samuels, a 75-year-old former city councilman who lost to her by just two points in 2022. Samuels has been arguing to voters that Omar focuses too much on issues abroad like the Israel-Hams war and does not spend enough time fighting for constituents. The Somalia-born Democrat has repeatedly attended pro-Gaza rallies - and her daughter was arrested for organizing a student-led campus protest at Columbia University in support of Palestinians.
Another New York Democrat who supported the defund the police movement, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., however, appears to not be in jeopardy of losing her seat. Her Democrat challenger Marty Dolan had wanted the district to return to more moderate leadership. He criticized her for being too extreme on Israel and other issues.
One ad ran for Dolan's campaign hit AOC for 'defunding the police.' Still, the Squad leader won her Democratic primary race, defending her seat representing part of the Bronx, last week. 'Wall Street came for us again, and the people prevailed,' she posted on X after winning the primary. 'Thank you to the Bronx and Queens for choosing me to be your Congresswoman. It is the honor of my life to fight for working families and everyday people.'
Similar to many of the Squad member's stances on defunding the police, several Democratic socialist New York City Council members slammed the increased NYPD funding in the city's 2025 budget. 'Mayor Adams is funneling money into his NYPD pet projects that do not work towards real community safety including the Cop City multi-agency training center, the 86 member PR team, the teenage school police cadet program, and the Strategic Response Group,' council member Shahana Hanif said.
'A budget is about choices and Mayor Adams has made the wrong ones,' she continued. 'I cannot sign off on a budget that, despite the Council's best efforts, continues us down Mayor Adams's path of austerity.' Tiffany Cabán, another New York City Council Democratic socialist, said 'This no vote will certainly not grow my popularity with the powers that be.' 'My constituents did not put me in this room to be a rubber stamp on another Mayor Adams budget.' Meanwhile, Democrat New York City Mayor Eric Adams celebrated the budget adoption in a statement.
'Our administration’s mission is clear: Protect public safety, rebuild our economy, and make this city more livable — and this budget is a direct testament to that mission,' he said. 'A system this cruel and inhumane can't be reformed,' Bowman posted on X after his December 2020 election. 'Defund the police, and defund the system that's terrorizing our communities.' In another tweet from April 2021, Bowman wrote, 'Republicans want to defund every government program except for those that actively terrorize Black and brown people.'
'It's time to disarm the police,' a third Bowman tweet from 2019 said. The New York Democrat had been a leading 'defund the police' voice on Capitol Hill. In contrast, George Latimer, the New York county executive who beat Bowman, has not expressed a desire for defunding law enforcement.
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