Biden: Public safety layoffs 'pernicious'

WASHINGTON, April 3 (UPI) -- U.S. Vice President Joe Biden said Monday cuts in public safety agencies are "pernicious" and compound the risk of first responders who are not laid off.

Speaking to more than 100 federal, state and local law enforcement officers, first responders and officials at the vice president's official residence on the grounds of the U.S. Naval Observatory in Washington, Biden criticized elected officials who vote against funding for local law enforcement when it results in layoffs of public safety workers.

"It used to be you were among the last to go, now you're the first to go," Biden said. "It's really is -- it's kind of pernicious. It's a perfect storm out there."

Biden said one consequence of layoffs in the public safety sector is "entire neighborhoods that become, you know, arson playgrounds, that get occupied by drug dealers, that get occupied by elements that are a blight on society. And y'all have to go in there."

"You're stuck in a God-awful mess, and so it doesn't make sense to us that that would be happening at a time when the need for y'all actually would be increasing," he said.

The vice president said political figures who oppose funding for public safety in difficult fiscal times "walked away because they didn't like the way we were paying for it."

"The first guy who's going to have a problem is the guy whose $3 million home is on fire and you can't get a truck out there," he said. "The first guy that's going to have a problem is the person who has real assets and finds their house burglarized or robbed, or their Porsche is stolen.

"I'm not very subtle; I find it find absolutely beyond my understanding," he said.

"There's one thing we know: the more cops on the street, the fewer cops get killed," he said. "The more firefighters responding to a fire, the fewer injuries to the firefighters, because you have each other's backs."