Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez argue the phrase shouldn’t be taken literally and represents police reforms

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez weighed in Tuesday on the proposed New York City budget cuts to the police department she said don't go far enough, saying “defunding police means defunding police.”

“Defunding police means defunding police. It does not mean budget tricks or funny math. It does not mean moving school police officers from the NYPD budget to the Department of Education’s budget so the exact same police remain in schools,” the congresswoman said in a statement.

Inbox: @AOC weighs in quite critically on developing de Blasio-City Council NYPD budget deal > pic.twitter.com/QRZ3hvmBU6

— Ben Max (@TweetBenMax) June 30, 2020

Establishment Democrats and progressives have debated over what “defund the police” actually means. Some argue the phrase shouldn’t be taken literally and just stands to represent police reforms.

“It does not mean counting overtime cuts as cuts, even as NYPD ignores every attempt by City Council to curb overtime spending and overspends on overtime anyways,” Ocasio-Cortez continued. “If these reports are accurate, then these proposed ‘cuts’ to the NYPD budget are a disingenuous illusion. This is not a victory. The fight to defund policing continues.”

The New York City Council and Mayor Bill de Blasio reached a deal Tuesday to cut $1 billion from the NYPD’s $6 billion budget.

According to the Gotham Gazette report Ocasio-Cortez was referring to, the agreement would reduce the number of officers in the city by canceling its July class of 1,163 cadets. It also includes $350 million in cuts to overtime pay and and various other expenses such as travel enforcement and vehicle purchases.

The new budget will shift school safety and school crossing guards out of the NYPD’s jurisdiction to account for $483 million total, according to the Gazette.

That $1 billion would go instead to education, social services in communities hit hard by the virus, and summer youth programming for over 100,000 young people.

Cuts are also coming for the NYPD’s capital budget, such as canceling plans to build a new precinct in Jamaica, Queens, and instead, building a community center. The city is also planning to shift some police capital funding to install broadband internet in public housing complexes.

That is hilarious. Democrats have been trying to have it both ways – saying “defund the police” while actually just advocating for small decreases in their budgets. They know most Americans aren’t as anti-police as their most extremist activist base.

As usual, AOC is so extreme that she’s screwing over Democrats just trying to be moderate enough so that they don’t drive away all normal non-stupid Americans from voting for them. And we definitely appreciate it, don’t we!? LOL!