I am wondering to what degree would actually work. As I understand it, lots of the most egregious equipment is picked up essentially as federal gov't / military "leftovers", and while it's nominally sold or auctioned off there's not exactly a lot of potential buyers. So cutting your local police force would just mean the one next door buys twice as much, and cutting everywhere just decreases every buyer's budget so the price just drops.

I suppose in this case we see the money going to programs that would, y'know, maybe at least help some people - assuming it doesn't get pitched directly into middle-class tax cuts, which seems more likely to me in any large city. But I don't see exactly how budget reduction would have any noticable impact on militarization.