Denver, Colorado, Mayor Mike Johnston announced Friday that the city would be making cuts to services because of what KCNC-TV called a “critical situation with the budget.”
Being a politician, Johnston refused to take responsibility for the cuts himself, of course, and being a leftist (one outlet in 2017 referred to him as “a homegrown Bernie Sanders”), he certainly couldn’t blame the influx of illegal immigrants in his city, even though that appears to be what’s given rise to the “critical situation.”
And being a Democrat, Johnston wasn’t willing to lay the blame for the problem where it belongs, at least in 2024 — at the feet of President Joe Biden and his administration’s failed border policies.
Instead, Johnston opened his news conference on Friday by blaming the cuts on congressional Republicans.
“I’m here to talk a little bit about the devastating impact of the failure of Republican leadership in Congress this week to pass comprehensive immigration change and the impact that will have both on city budgets and on services that we can provide for newcomers in the city,” Johnston said, right out of the gate.
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Granted, Johnston eventually got around to expressing some frustration over the fact that the Democrat-controlled Senate also failed to pass a border deal this week, but that was later.
“We would have a balanced flow of people that would come with work authorization,” Johnston said, if only Congress had passed a bill. “That would come with federal resources, and cities like ours could successfully integrate them.”
Of course, part of the problem with that philosophy is that it begins with the assumption that the American people want Congress to find a way to “successfully integrate” the millions of illegals already in the country.
The fact is, they don’t. Some who have arrived and are eligible for refugee status or asylum due to conditions in their home countries — a tiny minority — are a different matter, of course, but for the most part, Americans welcome legal immigrants and want illegal immigrants to be subjected to the rightful consequence of their crimes, in most cases deportation.
Is the border crisis the fault of Democrats?
Johnston, however, thinks — or at any rate he wants voters to think — that Republicans are merely playing games with immigration policy in hopes of enhancing their performance at the polls in November. (The fact that Johnston admits the immigration crisis will help Republicans in November tells you who he really believes to be responsible for it.)
Johnston didn’t explain why, if Democrats want the issue solved, they didn’t so in the first two years of the Biden administration when they had control of the White House and both houses of Congress.
I’m not sure why you’d want to, but you can watch Johnston’s 24-minute news conference in its entirety below.
Johnston announced cuts to the Department of Motor Vehicles as well as Parks and Recreation, although he said he expected no layoffs, at least for now, according to KCNC.
“Without any federal support, without any work authorization, without changes to policy, we are going to have to make changes to what we can do in terms of our city budget, and what we can do in terms of support for newcomers who have arrived in the city,” he said.
Motor vehicle registration, for instance, will move mostly online — which anyone who has ever waited in line at the DMV will probably think of more as a feature, not a bug.
The city is attempting to cut about $5 million from its budget, KCNC reported.
