Will the DC Council choose racial equity over business as usual?
Tomorrow, as the DC Council votes on the Local Budget Act for the next fiscal year, we will be watching to see which Councilmembers choose racial equity over business as usual at the Wilson building.
As DC emerges from the pandemic, much is at stake in this historic budget. Our members are middle class and working class DC residents who care about our community and are some of the most civically active people in our city. We have been aware for years of the extreme poverty, unmet human needs, and inequality of income and wealth in our community. But like so many of our fellow Americans, the pandemic and the protests following the death of George Floyd have made us newly aware of the needless suffering of our people. We are committed to use this budget to bring transformative change to our community.
We are working with the Fair Budget Coalition and Just Recovery DC coalition for a local version of the transformative change that President Joe Biden and Democratic leaders in Congress seek at the national level. Motivated by a particular concern for racial equity, Democratic leaders are pushing for historic investments in struggling working class and middle class families, as well as historically marginalized communities. When they proposed funding these investments through higher taxes on the wealthy, massive resistance to this agenda was mounted by powerful corporate forces and their congressional allies.
A similar struggle is shaping up at the local level. Together with the Fair Budget Coalition and Just Recovery DC coalition, we are championing transformative investments at the local level that would promote racial equity.
Two critical areas that are underfunded are:
Affordable housing: programs for people experiencing homelessness and those who are housing insecure are critically underfunded. Meanwhile, housing insecurity will increase substantially with the phasing out of the eviction moratorium that kept people housed during the public health emergency. Read more about the funding gaps for affordable housing.
Affordable child care: the subsidized child care program (Birth to Three) has been underfunded since it was enacted in 2018. The mostly Black and brown women who work in this sector are not paid fair wages. They also face particular hardships due to extra costs and harder working conditions during the pandemic.
We are part of a broad coalition that proposes filling these major funding gaps with higher income taxes on the wealthiest 3% that would raise $169 million, with 90% of the new taxes paid for by those making more than one million dollars each year. Progressive champions Charles Allen, Janeese Lewis George and Brianne Nadeau have publicly voiced their support for a similar proposal.
But just as corporate forces seek to undermine President Biden’s agenda, corporate lobbyists and their political allies are pushing back in the Wilson building to preserve the status quo by defeating this common sense proposal. Chairman Mendelson has publicly stated his opposition to higher taxes for the wealthy, and Mayor Bowser has long opposed such proposals. They claim that we can pay for our needs with federal relief funds, but we know we can’t meaningful change with short term funds. They claim that our budget is already too big, disregarding the scale of unmet needs. They are satisfied with our tax code, despite DC ranking among the worst nationally when it comes to income and wealth inequality. They sound amazingly like Republican Senators who oppose every tax increase and expansion of government programs.
But we are hopeful that this complacency with the status quo does not represent the DC Council as a whole. Many Councilmembers are keenly aware that the pandemic and the movement against systemic racism have heightened dissatisfaction with business as usual. They have sensed that the public is hungry for bold, sustained investments in the communities that are most in need. They realize that nice rhetoric about racial equity must be backed up with real money in the communities that are most in need.
So we are hopeful that a majority of Councilmembers will do the right thing and vote for transformative change on Tuesday. We consider this vote THE most significant vote this budget season, and one of the most significant votes this year.
Make sure Councilmembers hear from you — sign the petition: https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/dc-council-raise-taxes-on-dcs-wealthiest
