From 730DC:
The DC Council descended into a “dumpster fire” yesterday trying to patch a relatively minor budget shortfall after a hastily-proposed, ambiguously-worded advertising tax drew fire from the Washington Informer and others. That left a $18 million gap and a lot of concern over the ad hoc nature of tax policy in this new world where the budget is shrinking.
Still on the table if the Council would have it: a tax on high-wealth households.
You know where else you might find some money? The MPD budget, which still hasn’t been cut.
Jews United For Justice posted a ‘rapid response’ emailer “Tell DC Council NO backroom budget cuts” yesterday evening. It’s often good to send individual, personally-written emails, but sometimes it’s nice to take someone else’s mass-mailer and add your own bit on the end, as I’ve done here….
I strongly oppose the Council’s last ditch efforts to cut $18 million from programs during a pandemic that is pushing many DC residents further into poverty. Further starving vital programs at a time when there are serious unmet needs is reckless, undemocratic, and immoral.
The Council must reject these cuts and instead stand with communities who need access to safe, decent housing, library services, child care, mental health counseling, and more. Cuts to the District budget also jeopardize our ability to meet long standing and mounting needs, such as low-income housing, eviction prevention, cash assistance for excluded workers, food access, mental health supports, and more.
At a time when we need MORE funding to meet basic needs, we reject any efforts that would hurt our most vulnerable families. To be quite clear: cutting services for our neighbors, many of which primarily serve Black and brown residents, while choosing not to raise income taxes on the wealthy or divesting further from the police is not racial equity. It is harmful.
Further, it is appalling that the Chair and Council would pit these communities against the small community news organizations that serve them. Find another way to fund these needs—such as through the small additional tax on DC’s wealthiest individuals that was proposed earlier this month, or through the cuts to our bloated and ineffective police department that members of our community have been demanding for many weeks, or by defunding EventsDC and its wasteful promotion of sports gambling, e-sports, and international professional leagues.
Finally, the timing of these proposals and the machinations to create this crisis at Council are disgusting and shameful. There is no reason any of this should have been a last-minute surprise to anyone. If the most contentious, unsupported ANCs in the District can circulate their proposals weeks in advance among their all-volunteer colleagues while simultaneously serving unrelated professional obligations, surely the all-professional, fully-staffed Council can do at least as much.
Send your own letters directly to Council Chair Mendelson, At-Large Council Members Bonds, Grosso, Silverman, and White, and your Ward Councilmember or via JUFJ’s mailer tool at https://jufj.org/no-backroom-cuts/.
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