One month ago I started working with students in the Washington D.C. public high school system, DCPS. I’ve meet students from almost all of the DCPS schools. One of those schools, M. M. Washington recently staged a walkout over cut backs in their school. M. M. Washington is a vocational school and a program cut means free access to a career path is removed. Every school had a similar story, no books, cuts in programs, and wide spread disrepair were the most common complaints. Ultimately the cause of many of these problems was the city wide budget cuts. So what can be blamed for the problems of the schools?
Really what we need to ask is why is D.C. is facing a projected deficit of 323 millions dollars. In the past, Washington D.C was a punching bag for critics of Marion Barry’s liberal policies. While Barry’s policies often included hiring large numbers people more or less solely to reduce unemployment, today Barry’s programs are dismantled and cannot be blamed for the deficits.
Our current mayor, Anthony Williams has adopted completely different policies but was stuck with the difficult task of closing a deficit of 200 millions last year and despite eventually balancing the budget is facing another deficit of 323 million this year. The occurrence of financial problems despite the fiscally conservative leadership of Williams has lead many to conclude that Washington D.C. faces a structural deficit.
What is a structural deficit and why is it important? A structural deficit means that the way D.C. gets its money is inherently flawed. It’s important because Congress decides the way D.C. gets its money and no matter what the local government does it won’t be able to fix things.
D.C. gets most of its money from its citizens just any state does. D.C. also gets money in the form of a federal payment to make up for the fact that D.C. can’t tax the many government buildings in the District. The logic is that every city has a business core they tax, except D.C. which many has federal buildings so the federal government needs to help out. The biggest question in the structural debate is if the federal payment is the proper size. It now seems clear that it is not even close to enough. A recent study shows that D.C. in fact does not even get more money then the average state does. So despite a payment a designed to give D.C. extra money, they actually get less
The problems goes deeper then just the fact that D.C. is sort changed by the federal government. D.C. both attracts large numbers of nontaxable nonprofits organizations and is limited by the federal government zoning regulations. It’s great to have non-profits in town to work, but they take land away from people that would pay taxes to the D.C. government. Further D.C. can’t have any buildings that are taller then the Washington monument, which costs the city a lot of money.
Beyond the lack of money going into D.C., we also have to spend extra money on a variety of unique problems. When the president drives around town half the D.C. police force is part of the convoy and not policing the streets. Like New York city, the D.C. area was the victim September 11th, and currently spends larger sums of money on emergency preparations.
Why should you care if all this messes up my city and keeps the students here in the district from having properly maintained schools? These issues might not mess up your life, but the phenomenon I am describing is really about how happens when a community has no political power. The same thing would happen to any state if federalism didn't give them guaranteed powers. Congress only operates in its own self-interest, which means serving 50 states and no more, even if that means contributing to failure of D.C. public schools.
If you think I am wrong about that I have one more story. There is one area D.C. does get a lot of help, that area is emergency preparations. Why? If there is a bombing on Capital Hill guess how they have to call? The D.C. emergency and fire departments. If they had to send their kids to D.C. public schools can you seriously tell me they wouldn't allocate more money to D.C. public schools?
Think of somewhere in your life where you don't have power to control things. Ask your yourself if you have been screwed over? If the answer is no wait.
