Caught in congressional chaos: D.C.’s $1 billion local budget hike

WASHINGTON—Caught in the congressional chaos over what and how much to put in its mammoth “reconciliation” bill, a billion-dollar mistake is languishing in the Republican-run House: The new D.C. budget. Republicans on Capitol Hill are holding up the money paid by D.C.’s taxpayers to fund their own needs.

The problem has existed since at least March 29, when lawmakers passed a temporary money bill freezing  government-wide spending at last year’s figures. Now lawmakers are considering a reconciliation bill to carry out those instructions, including the $4.5 trillion tax cut for corporations and the rich.

But for the Republicans catering to their white nationalist base, that prior money bill did not include $1 billion allotted to the Nation’s Capital—out of its own taxpayers’ dollars.

Now with the fiscal year more than half over, D.C. is limping along on sums equal to last year’s budget, and must sacrifice such things as more police on the streets, improvements in the schools, better public services, D.C.’s share of paying for regional Metro transit, and even costs of protecting foreign leaders it hosts almost daily.

None of this seems to bother House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La. While the GOP-run Senate quickly and without controversy approved the billion dollars before Congress quit for its Passover-Easter recess, Johnson has let the legislation languish.

In that sense, Johnson has acted in the sorry tradition of Southern segregationist Democrats who ran D.C. in the decades before limited “home rule” was enacted in the early 1970s. One part of that “limit” mandates Congress must pass D.C.’s budget after D.C. does.

One reason is just plain inaction and inattention. But another, and this is inescapable, is race. The city is and has long been home to large numbers of Black people.

Now, no race has a majority among D.C.’s 710,000 residents. There are roughly equal numbers of whites and non-Hispanic Blacks—just over 44% each—with Hispanics and Asian-Americans accounting for the rest.

The measure, S1077, the D.C. Local Funds Act, closes the budget hole, by letting D.C. spend its own funds, the Free D.C. coalition wrote to every representative.

“This bill restores D.C.’s ability to spend local money on local services. D.C.’s schools, Metro, emergency first responders, and more are funded with local tax dollars. Without this bill, D.C. will be forced to reduce spending on these programs by over $1.1 billion before September,” the coalition explained.

“Congress depends on D.C. to provide these services. Congressional staff ride Metro to work every day, rely on D.C. municipal workers to collect trash, have children in D.C.’s public schools, and depend on D.C. Fire and EMS for emergencies. Congress and D.C. communities both need the services that the D.C. Local Funds Act will allow.

“This is about D.C.’s local tax dollars funds, not federal funds. This bill pertains to D.C.’s locally generated tax revenues and has nothing to do with the federal budget. On March 24, the Congressional Budget Office issued guidance that ‘enacting S1077 would have no effect on the federal budget.’

Congress last passed D.C.’s budget, in mid-2024. The budget blueprint the new GOP congressional majority OKd earlier this year froze that figure, omitting the $1 billion in extra local revenue and spending.

“Delay is costing the District $5.5 million per day,” Free D.C. explains. The actual federal spending bill to keep the government going through September 30 “has already frozen D.C.’s ability to spend local funds, and every day that now passes without the House taking action is costing the District $5.5 million. We want the House to pass the D.C. Local Funds Act as swiftly as possible.”

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CONTRIBUTOR

Special to People’s World
Special to People’s World

People’s World is a voice for progressive change and socialism in the United States. It provides news and analysis of, by, and for the labor and democratic movements to our readers across the country and around the world. People’s World traces its lineage to the Daily Worker newspaper, founded by communists, socialists, union members, and other activists in Chicago in 1924.