March 12, 2025
Contact: Claire Goldberg, cgoldberg@dcfpi.org
The US Senate is set to vote Thursday on a continuing resolution for federal appropriations with a poison pill provision for the District that would force over $1 billion in cuts from its fiscal year (FY) 2025 budget, halfway through the year.
The intent of the continuing resolution is to avoid a federal shutdown by authorizing federal agencies to continue 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, but this bill includes provisions that treat DC government as a federal agency and, if passed, would force the District to revert to its 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 bill would effectively nullify the current DC budget in an extreme act of federal interference into District governance.
“We stand in solidarity with the residents of DC who don’t deserve these targeted attacks on their well-being or their autonomy, and they should be allowed to spend their own tax dollars the way they choose,” said Benjamin Orr, President and CEO of the Maryland Center on Economic Policy. “We also know this only foreshadows the kind of pain this Republican-led Congress will try to bring to Maryland as well.”
If the Senate follows the House and approves the continuing resolution, immediate cuts will be forced upon the District, harming schools, public safety, and the local workforce, in ways that harm the regional economy.
“DC isn’t just important to those who live there. DC is central to a broader regional economy that offers good jobs to hundreds of thousands of Virginians in the public and private sector,” underscored Ashley Kenneth, President and CEO of The Commonwealth Institute in Virginia. “This bill will harm that economy and harm many of our own residents, not to mention the businesses that operate both in DC and in our great state. There is no good rationale for targeting DC in this way and the ripple effects will extend far beyond local budget cuts.”
Erica Williams, Executive Director of the DC Fiscal Policy Institute added, “DC is already grappling with the effects of federal layoffs on the local and regional economy. This act of federal interference is a mean-spirited and wholly unnecessary attack on DC residents’ fundamental right to self-govern as Americans. There are no federal savings from this move and this decision is being made by people we didn’t vote for and who don’t answer to us. It only underscores the need for statehood and equal representation for the more than 700,000 residents who call DC home.”