Senator Josh Hawley (R, MO) wants to do that, so he’s introducing the David Dorn Back the Blue Act that would authorize DoJ to

raise the salaries of state and local police forces all across the country—except in cities that have chosen to defund law enforcement in the wake of nationwide protests and riots.

And

If the bill becomes law, police departments will have new federal funding at their disposal allowing them to increase the salaries of officers “up to 110 percent of the local median earnings, and would exclude cities that defund their police[.]”

Hawley is on the right track, but there needs to be an important adjustment to his bill. Rather than simply providing Federal funding to those cities, those funds should be matching funds, requiring the cities to put up their own salary-increasing funds before getting any Federal monies (I claim the matching ratio should require the receiving city to put up at least 50% of the increase). Otherwise, the city would simply shift the cost of the increase onto taxpayers from other States, taxpayers who have their own police departments to support.