The STOPGAP expenses bill that Republicans are pushing to avoid closing at the end of the week would effectively reduce the COLUMBIA district budget by around $ 1 billion over the next six months, a change that local leaders would warn would force dramatic reductions to essential services.
The reductions are being studied due to a series of legislative oddities that Republicans use to force the district, a city democratically at home towards a large number of federal workers and black residents, to absorb the same frost to its local budget which they apply through the federal government. President Trump, who diabolized government employees, said that he wanted to “take over” from DC
Under a law that established the “domicile rule” in Washington over 50 years ago, the Congress maintains the power of the city, including the final approval on its laws and its annual budget. Historically, the congress has included a routine language in its expenditure invoices which approves the DC budget, of which around 75% are funded by local income.
But the Republicans omitted the standard language of the bill on temporary expenses which should be voted in the House on Tuesday. This has placed the fate of Washington in the center of a political debate on the financing of the United States government. Democrats could seek to block the measure in the Senate, but with a deadline on Friday to maintain federal funding that flows, this could blame them for a closure of the government.
The bill would largely freeze federal expenses at approved levels last year and, if it is adopted as currently written, would also oblige DC to return to the lower expenses in its budget approved by the Congress in 2024.
This would lead to a reduction of $ 1.1 billion compulsory halfway to the exercise. It would force the district to reduce 16% of all the remaining funds that have not already been spent, according to a memo from the office of the mayor E. Bowser sent to the legislators during the weekend.
At a press conference outside the Capitole on Monday, DC managers urged the congress to review the measurement of temporary spending, saying that the effects of frost could be “devastating” for the city, which probably leads to layoffs in public security and public schools.
Since the budgetary freezing would come from six months in the city’s exercise, the district should rush in a few days to find a billion dollars in savings by the end of September.
Given a large part of this money was linked to contracts, leases and Medicaids, which all take the time to be accessible, local officials warned that the most immediate objective for cuts would be the wages of city workers, including police and teachers.
“There is no way to reduce this kind of money in the time we would have during this exercise so as not to affect the police or not to affect teachers and not affect some of the basic government services that allow us to keep our city clean, safe and beautiful,” said Ms. Bowser, a democrat who explicitly called on the president of the president for world capital.
Ms. Bowser said she had been in contact with the White House.
“They said it didn’t come from them,” she said about omission.
Local officials complained that it was unfair to extend the freezing of expenses that the Republicans agreed to apply for the federal government in Washington, because most of the money in the city budget comes from DC residents, not federal sources.
“These are not really savings because they are DC dollars,” said Phil Mendelson, president of the DC council. “Most people, unfortunately, in this country believe that the Columbia district is funded by the federal government. We are not.
Most district funds are generated through local income. Another 24 percent comes from federal subsidies, while less than 1% come from direct federal funds.
DC is required to submit a plan balancing its budget over five years, and Ms. Bowser last April had offered about $ 500 million in cuts to the city’s programs, including the elimination of a program that gives allowances to child care workers and the first education teachers. The DC Council has reversed most of these cuts, in particular by restoring $ 70 million in the childcare program.
The representative Eleanor Holmes Norton, a democrat who represents the District of Columbia as a delegate but did not vote in the House, proposed on Monday an amendment to the bill on expenditure which would allow DC to carry out her budget as planned.
“DC has not been treated as a federal agency for funding for over 20 years, precisely because it can force dramatic cuts at night for essential services, including police, sanitation and schools,” said Norton. “The reductions of these services would work against the declared objective of the Republicans to improve public security and the order to DC”
But it seemed unlikely that the Republicans will agree to adopt it.
Congress Republicans have more and more sought to weigh on DC governance. Last year, the house controlled by the GOP Voted by big margins For two resolutions of disapproval of overthrowing a pair of laws adopted by the DC Council.
They also used changes to spend invoices to prohibit the city’s capacity to tax and regulate the sale of cannabis and prohibit the expenses of the city funds for the abortion services for the beneficiaries of Medicaid.
