Apparently Joe Biden has added a new charge to the litany of crimes committed by Republicans in order to help “the rich.” Now we’re apparently for killing firefighters and policemen to put a few more bucks in George Soros’ and Warren Buffett’s pockets…or something.

From the pool report:

“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,” Biden said, adding that was why the administration pushed for added public safety spending in the first recovery act.

Biden referred to lawmakers who always vote against funding for local law enforcement. “At least they’re consistent,” he said, rapping those who stopped supporting the funding in tight fiscal times.

“They walked away because they didn’t like the way we were paying for it,” Biden said, referring to tax increases on the rich.

Biden suggested that the resulting decrease in hiring gets police officers and firefighters killed.

Biden said it’s a question of public safety, but also of first responder safety.

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

Biden also launched into a gratuitous attack on the rich, mocking them and saying they would suffer even more than others for what he regards as short-sighted Republican policies.

“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. 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,” Biden said. “I’m not very subtle; I find it absolutely beyond my understanding.”

Though Biden’s remarks were partisan and clearly designed to curry political favor with firefighters and police, the gathering was billed as an official event and paid for by taxpayers.

This is a dumb argument — even for Joe Biden. It’s the equivalent of Republicans arguing that the Obama Administration has blood on its hands for funneling money into Solyndra and Cash for Clunkers instead of into local police forces and fire departments. We could go on and on with these arguments, especially when the cost of all the vacations the Obamas have taken in the last three years could probably fund the police departments for whole cities.

But, do you notice the bait and switch here? Democrats fight tooth and nail to pump as much money as humanly possible into ACORN, Planned Parenthood, unions, the National Endowment of the Arts, solar power, cowboy poetry and every other wasteful bit of nonsense you can possibly imagine. But, when the time comes to pay for all of it, they present it as a choice between higher taxes or cutting money for roads, the police, and firemen.

Here’s an alternate idea: How about we set priorities, pay for basics first, ensure that our entitlement programs don’t go broke in the next decade or two, and start paying off our debt. Then, if there’s any money lying around after all of that, we can have a conversation about whether we should deposit all that extra cash in a rainy day fund, give it back to the taxpayers the government confiscated it from, or spend it on the non-essentials.

John Hawkins is a professional writer who runs Right Wing News and Linkiest. He’s also the co-owner of the The Looking Spoon. You can hear more from John Hawkins on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, G+, You Tube, & at Pajamas Media.