Cause and Effect

Someone clearly doesn't quite understand the difference between cause and effect. That someone is the federal government, which is going to withhold federal funds that would go to the NYPD to fund additional police officers. Why are they going to do so?

Because the NYPD is too successful at bringing down the rate of crime in the City.

Washington is cutting New York City out of its share of $1 billion in economic stimulus money aimed at helping cities avoid police layoffs, it was learned Monday.

About 1,000 state and local law enforcement agencies, including those in upstate Rochester, Philadelphia and Kalamazoo, Mich., will get help, but not a penny is coming here, officials familiar with the program said.

Officials said the Justice Department decided the most worthy cities were those with serious budgetary problems and relatively high crime rates.

New York - which had applied for upward of 800 cops under the program but had expected to receive money for about 200 - has neither, so it's being passed over. The officials noted the city got about $29 million from a different stimulus source earlier this year.

Mayor Bloomberg called the stimulus snub "disappointing, to put it mildly."

"It doesn't make sense to punish our Police Department because they have driven down crime with fewer resources," the mayor said.

Staffing at the NYPD continues to decline, and the NYPD has still managed to keep driving crime rates down, but that success means that the City isn't going to get funds that will maintain that success.

As for claims that the City isn't in financial distress, I'd beg to differ given that the City is billions in the hole due to the collapse on Wall Street, which feeds City and State coffers to the tune of billions every year. Without that money, there's a gaping deficit that must be closed.