After improperly claiming tax exemptions she wasn’t entitled to, the Democratic Senate candidate in Maryland was ordered to pay her back taxes. But she has largely failed to do so, reports the Washington Free Beacon:
Angela Alsobrooks, the Democratic nominee for Maryland’s open Senate seat, missed the Oct. 31 deadline to pay her fair share of taxes on her former Washington, D.C., rental property…Washington, D.C., authorities issued Alsobrooks a $47,580 bill in late September for taxes she should have paid on her former rental property dating back to 2004 had she not improperly claimed tax exemptions on the home meant only for senior citizens and primary residents of the district. The bill was due by the end of the day Thursday, but…Alsobrooks still owes nearly $30,000 of her fair share as of Friday morning….Alsobrooks raked in a cozy $222,000 salary in 2023 for her service as county executive of Prince George’s County…[but] Much of her net worth is tied up in her Upper Marlboro, Maryland, rental property, as well as her state-sponsored pension plan….
Alsobrooks is now paying a hefty price for bending the rules to skirt on her own taxes. She received her grandmother’s former Washington, D.C., home in November 2003 when the senior became too old to live alone, and rented it out for her personal profit until she sold it in 2018. Throughout those years, Alsobrooks improperly claimed tax exemptions only meant for seniors and primary residents of the district. Alsobrooks, 53, is neither—she’s been a registered voter in Prince George’s County since 2000. Alsobrooks’s efforts to dodge her fair share of taxes on the property didn’t end with her improper tax deductions. She says she obtained the home from her grandmother, but Washington, D.C., real estate records obtained by the Free Beacon show Alsobrooks actually obtained it from her mother.
Alsobrooks is the County Executive of Prince George’s County, Maryland. She has a bad record on crime and public safety. Under her leadership as county executive, murders have nearly doubled, violent crime has increased a great deal, and carjackings have increased well over 500%. That is much worse than in the country as a whole, where murders have risen by less than 10% over the same time period. Alsobrooks was accused of defunding the police, because she diverted $20 million away from police training at a time when the county police department was understaffed by 300 officers.
Higher police spending is correlated with lower murder rates, so defunding the police costs lives.
Criminologists say that to cut high violent crime rates, America needs to hire more police. As criminology professor Justin Nix notes, “Given its level of serious crime, America has…extraordinary levels of under-policing.” America has fewer police compared to its population than most developed countries. As a graph provided by Professor Nix shows, the U.S. has far fewer police per homicide than most developed countries. America has less than a tenth as many police per homicide as Germany, Italy, Spain, Japan, Greece, Portugal, Austria, and the Netherlands.
Europe spends more of its economy on its police than the U.S. does. That may partly explain why Europe has a lower murder rate, and a lower rate of killings by the police. More cops on the beat means they can solve more murders, and catching murderers deters murders from being committed. If a murderer doesn’t think he will be caught, he may commit murder even if there are strict penalties for the few murderers who are caught. Nothing is more important in deterring crime than the rate at which criminals are caught.
More cops on the beat also means they spend more time getting to know the communities they serve. That makes them more knowledgeable and effective, and less likely to get into unnecessary violent encounters.
The U.S. actually has fewer police than Europe does, compared to its population, and spends less on police as a percentage of its economy.
Police in America catch a much smaller percentage of killers than police do in most of Europe. The U.S. solves only about half of all murders. By contrast, more than 90 percent of all murders are solved in Germany. In the U.S., black-on-black murders usually are not punished. Chicago solves only 47 percent of cases when a murder victim is white, 33 percent when a victim is Hispanic, and a wretched 22 percent of cases when the victim is black, according to NPR. As a result of low clearance rates, “America incarcerates fewer people per homicide than countries like Australia, Japan, Switzerland, and Austria,” according data provided by Professor Justin Nix.
As Daniel Bier notes, “As a share of GDP, the EU [European Union] spends 33% more than the US on police.” “European countries almost uniformly spend a much larger share on police than US states, though just how much larger varies wildly.”
