KEY POINTS:

• Eliminates funding for 11,000 FBI personnel, cuts funding for 60 local law enforcement agencies, and slashes grants to local and state governments.
• Forces a hiring freeze at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) that would mean 190 agents, 130 Industry Operations Investigators, and 180 technical and support staff would be lost to attrition. ATF agents are often some of the first federal law enforcement on the scene of a mass shooting to help local law enforcement identify at-large shooters.
• Eliminates funding for more than 2,000 Customs and Border Protection agents and officers—allowing an additional 150,000 pounds of cocaine, nearly 900 pounds of fentanyl, nearly 2,000 pounds of heroin, and more than 17,000 pounds of methamphetamine into our country. Forces the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) to implement rolling furloughs of all employees—including agents—for 78 days.

BACKGROUND:

Congressional Republicans are threatening a catastrophic default that would crash our economy and erase hundreds of thousands of jobs in an effort to extract a wish list of devastating cuts to programs hardworking families count on—including to law enforcement and border security.

The Default on America Act would defund the police and make communities less safe by:

• Eliminating funding for 11,000 FBI personnel, including agents who investigate crimes and keep guns out of the hands of felons and domestic abusers.
• Cutting federal support to 60 local law enforcement agencies—eliminating 400 local law enforcement positions—and slash law enforcement, crime prevention and justice grants to local and state governments by an average of $30,000 per locality and $1 million per state.
• Leading the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) to implement a hiring freeze that would mean 190 agents, 130 Industry Operations Investigators, and 180 technical and support staff would be lost to attrition—and ATF’s entire workforce of over 5,000 personnel would have to take 36 furlough days, further undermining their operations. ATF agents are often some of the first federal law enforcement on the scene of a mass shooting to help local law enforcement identify at-large shooters.

The Default on America Act would make our border less secure by:

• Eliminating funding for more than 2,000 Customs and Border Protection agents and officers and severely undermine our ability to secure the border and combat drug trafficking—allowing an additional 150,000 pounds of cocaine, nearly 900 pounds of fentanyl, nearly 2,000 pounds of heroin, and more than 17,000 pounds of methamphetamine into our country.
• Forces the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) to implement rolling furloughs of all employees—including agents—for 78 days.