D.C. Mayor Admitted Budget is Out of Control, Demands More Money

Here’s a little flashback to the previous D.C. budget debate.

Mayor Muriel Bowser returned next year’s budget to the D.C. City Council unsigned, claiming it’s “unsustainable.”

In a letter addressed to Council Chairman Phil Mendelson, she wrote that she “Cannot support a budget that needlessly increases our residents’ property and incomes taxes, raises the paid family leave tax to untested levels, or harms our public schools.”

D.C.’s 2024 budget approached $20 billion. That’s ridiculous for what is a relatively small city. D.C.’s budget is even bigger than San Francisco which is hardly a model of fiscal management.

But Bowser showed up to protest that D.C. needs more money.

Top D.C. officials protested a House Republican-written funding patch outside the Capitol on Monday, saying the omission of routine language included in prior continuing resolutions could mean a de facto $1 billion budget cut for the city government.

Mayor Muriel Bowser — flanked by Democratic Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, members of the D.C. Council and other local officials — said the measure would force cuts to police, public schools, sanitation and other key city services if passed later this week.

“These are not savings for the federal government,” Bowser said. “This is simply damage to the District.” She added that it was a “$1.1 billion mistake.”

Here’s a thought that would solve this whole problem. Retrocession. Return most of the place to Maryland. And then D.C. can have its failed city government that will truly be ‘independent’ so long as there’s a free corridor for federal officials to travel into what is Newark on the Potomac.