Representative Jay Inslee addressed the potential Lynnwood police cuts on the floor of the House. He made the comments yesterday during debate of a war spending bill.

I wish to address the security of our citizens. Here’s a headline July 26 that we’re going to see repeated across the country in the next year: “Lynnwood Cops Face Job Cuts.”

We are facing a 25 percent reduction of police officers in Lynnnwood, Washington, because we can’t pay for them, our first line of security in our neighborhoods. But today we would be voting for something on the order of over several years of about $4 billion to train police officers in Kabul, Afghanistan.

It is wrong to be borrowing money from China, laying off American police officers, to train police officers in Afghanistan. And it is wrong because it isn’t showing respect for the few families that are fighting this war, our troops and their families, while the rest of us go to the beach and not be fiscally responsible for this war.

If we’re going to fight this war, we should pay for it. And we should pay for it in a way that keeps our cops on the beat, our first line of security.

The House voted 308 to 114 for the $59 billion war funding bill. Rep. Inslee and Rep. McDermott were the only House members from Washington state to vote against it.