NO to Kenney & Council’s Brutality Budget!
We said: Defund the Police by $120 million We got: SAME POLICE BUDGET; SAME POLICE BRUTALITY VOTE NO to Kenney’s Brutality Budget
After 20 days of unprecedented protests demanding significant defunding of the Philadelphia Police, Mayor Kenney and City Council President Darrell Clarke have delivered a budget that openly betrays Black community safety and our city as a whole. Late Wednesday night, Clarke and City Council leadership left our bloated and abusive police force entirely intact. This massive police budget leaves critical city departments that serve our communities gutted by devastating cuts.
Rather than taking action, the city’s political establishment has intentionally misled the public by claiming that no increase means defunding the police force. We won’t fall for it. Co-opting the language of the movement isn’t enough to hide City Council’s cowardice and betrayal. The blame for the violence this budget ensures lies squarely at the feet of Council President Darrell Clarke, Majority Leader Cherelle Parker, Majority Whip Curtis Jones, Deputy Whip Mark Squilla, and Council Appropriations Chair Maria Quiñones-Sánchez.
Their budget maintains the reckless $120 million police budget increase City Council and Mayor Kenney have imposed since Mayor Kenney took office. Despite mass outcry and despite Black people being murdered on video by police officers across the U.S., City Council has willfully produced the same police budget and the same police brutality. Taking real action to defund the Police means elected officials must decrease their budget by no less than $120 million.
Notably, City Council Leadership’s budget also makes no attempt to increase the tax burden of Philadelphia’s super-wealthy individuals, corporations or developers to fund city services. By ignoring Kendra Brooks and Helen Gym’s Personal Wealth Tax and full elimination of the Tax Abatement, Darrell Clarke has yet again repackaged the same failed tax policies that have made Philadelphia America’s poorest large city.
As municipal workers, we are thrilled to see the number of AFSCME DC 33, DC 47 and non-union city worker siblings who have joined the struggle for a just city. We are emboldened by the thousands of people fighting for Black and Brown liberation in our streets. Together, we are building a future upon real political alternatives to the corrupt and insular Democratic establishment.
To get there: We demand members of City Council VOTE NO to Clarke and Kenney’s Brutality Budget. Defund the Police by $120 million to Fully Fund City Services.
