The US House of Representatives will vote Tuesday on a federal spending bill that could cut $1 billion from DC’s budget halfway into the fiscal year, likely leading to immediate and wide-ranging cuts to public safety, schools, and other critical programs, and layoffs of DC government workers.
The spending bill, a continuing resolution intended to avoid a federal shutdown, treats DC government as a federal agency and, if passed, would force the District to revert to its fiscal year (FY) 2024 spending levels. The FY 2025 budget is roughly $1 billion larger than it was in FY 2024. The FY 2025 budget, like every other DC budget, underwent a 30-day Congressional review before going into effect last October. The House’s bill would effectively nullify the current DC budget in an extreme act of federal interference into District governance.
Under a continuing resolution, federal agencies must keep spending at the previous year’s levels until Congress passes a new budget. For more than 20 years, Congress has allowed DC to spend its local dollars at current budget levels without disruption under continuing resolutions. And since 2013, Congress has also exempted DC from government shutdowns, allowing the District to keep spending its own local revenue and maintain critical services if the federal budget is behind schedule. The House bill ignores both precedents and targets dollars raised from DC residents and businesses, not federal funds. This reckless change is not about good governance and would cause devastating harm.
DC Congresswoman Norton filed an amendment to remove these two provisions from the continuing resolution and allow DC to spend its local dollars at current budget levels. The House Rules Committee would have to approve her amendment in order for it to be included in the continuing resolution that the full US House will vote on tomorrow.
DC is already required by law to pass a balanced four-year budget and is not just another federal agency. As DC Council Chairman Phil Mendelson said in reaction to the bill, “It is nonsensical […] They would realize no savings from this, because these are not federal dollars.”
The harm from this sudden cut to child care, housing, firefighters, and schools will undoubtedly and disproportionately fall on Black and brown people with the fewest resources because of systemic racism. And, because DC residents have no voting representation in Congress, there is no way for residents to hold the elected officials behind the bill responsible for the impact.
This act of federal interference is an attack on DC residents’ fundamental right to self-govern as Americans and only underscores the need for statehood and equal representation. The more than 700,000 residents of DC deserve full voting rights and control over locally raised tax dollars.
