[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 57 (Thursday, April 19, 2012)]
[House]
[Pages H2022-H2025]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              BUDGET AUTONOMY FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 5, 2011, the Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from the District 
of Columbia (Ms. Norton) for 30 minutes.
  Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I've come to the floor today to inform the 
Congress of exciting new developments about the major priority for the 
District of Columbia for this year's Congress. These developments have 
come very quickly, both in the Congress and in the Nation.
  We now have unprecedented momentum, both in the country and here in 
the Congress, to allow the District to spend its own local funds 
without coming to the Congress of the United States. That will seem 
very strange to Members of the public since they've never heard of a 
local jurisdiction having to bring its own local funds to a national 
legislature, which had nothing to do with raising those funds, for 
approval to spend them.
  It is an anomaly whose time has passed. And I'm very pleased at the 
response we are getting in the Congress, and that we have gotten in 
very little time, less than 6 months.
  We see it culminating in a national poll that, in essence, blesses 
the momentum we are seeing in the Congress for budget autonomy for the 
District of Columbia. This poll was released just this week, and it's 
been an important week for the District of Columbia, because the 
District has just celebrated Emancipation Day. The slaves who lived in 
the District of Columbia were emancipated 9 months before slaves in the 
rest of the United States. And there's some analogy here, my friends, 
because what was not emancipated was the budget of the District of 
Columbia. And that's what we're trying to free now.
  And that's what the American people seem to want, by a very large 
majority. A polling organization that is bipartisan, called Purple 
Insights, using the traditional methodologies that you see in all the 
national polls, asked this question of Americans in all parts of the 
country, from both parties and Indepedents.
  The question was preceded by the following: The budget of the city of 
Washington, DC, is funded by local residents' tax dollars. Do you think 
that decisions about Washington, DC's local budget should be made by 
Washington, DC, taxpayers and their own elected officials, or should 
those budget decisions be made by the U.S. Congress?
  And here are the results. Seventy-one percent of the American people 
said the DC budget should be decided exclusively by the DC government. 
Only 23 percent said that the decisions should be made by the U.S. 
Congress.
  What is most gratifying is the way in which these numbers reflect 
both parties. The polling organization broke down these numbers, and 
they were careful to ask people from both parties. For Democrats, the 
notion that the budget should be decided only by the DC government was 
71 percent. But Independents were at 75 percent, and Republicans were 
at 72 percent. So, no matter where my colleagues come from, their 
constituents support the bedrock principle--no principle is more 
American--that if you raise the money, you get to decide how to use it. 
And you certainly don't go to a national body for approval.
  And they looked at men and women. 68 percent of men, and 72 percent 
of women believe that the local government should decide the local 
budget and be the final decisionmakers.
  If you look at regions of the country, Mr. Speaker, they had the same 
kind of virtually even breakdown in support of local control. If you 
look at the Northeast, it's 69 percent. You look at the Midwest, it 
goes up to 74 percent. You look at the South, it's 68 percent. You look 
at the West, it's 72 percent.
  No red-blooded American is going to say, with a straight face, that 
you can take my local budget with my money in it and make the Congress 
the final decision-maker on that budget. That's what this poll shows.
  The Republicans and the Democrats are virtually even. But more 
Republicans say that DC budgets should be made by the local DC 
government; that's 72 percent, 71 percent Democrats.
  If you look at those who oppose, the opposition shows the same 
breakdown. You have 24 percent of Democrats saying Congress should 
control the DC budget, and you have 22 percent of Republicans.
  Where's your majority here?
  The majority is where I think most people would have expected it to 
be. But I am grateful for a local organization called DC Vote for 
commissioning this poll. And DC Vote realized that the poll might come 
under some scrutiny, so it went to a polling organization which is 
known for its bipartisan reputation in polling.

                              {time}  1600

  That, of course, should be all we need to hear, but the fact is we 
have a parallel development right here in the Congress.
  This week, Senator Joe Lieberman announced that he was preparing his 
own budget autonomy bill for the District of Columbia. Now, Senator 
Lieberman, who works in a very bipartisan way in the Senate--I am so 
sorry to see that he has decided to retire--has long been the foremost 
Senate champion of equal rights for residents of the District of 
Columbia.
  The momentum for budget autonomy began with a Republican chairman in 
the House, Darrell Issa. I will have something to say about how that 
happened. We then had two more Republican leaders--House Majority 
Leader Eric Cantor and the Republican Governor of Virginia, Bob 
McDonnell--weigh in for budget autonomy for the District of Columbia. 
This week, citizens from the organization DC Vote were here in the 
Congress, speaking to Members about the latest poll results. But let me 
say something about the Members because it's the Members who have the 
last say here.
  As chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, 
Darrell Issa is responsible in the House for matters that involve the 
District of Columbia. His committee, and I've been here more than 20 
years, had never had a hearing on the DC budget. He decided to have 
one. He listened to his witnesses, and he listened to the chief 
financial officer of the District of Columbia and to other District of 
Columbia officials.
  What he heard was that the District of Columbia had the largest 
budget surplus in the United States, here in the middle of a recession, 
and that its budget and finances were in better shape than those of 
virtually any State in the United States. He heard the witnesses from 
his side as well as our side--the Republican side as well as the 
Democratic side--and from objective witnesses from the outside saying 
that the major problem the District faces are the inefficiencies and 
the premiums it pays on Wall Street because its local budget cannot be 
implemented until it is approved by the Congress of the United States. 
This creates huge uncertainty, of course, among bondholders and on Wall 
Street not of the making of our citizens but due to the fact that the 
Congress has to approve the City's budget.
  Now, I can tell you that no one can remember when the Congress of the 
United States has changed the City's budget itself, and you can imagine 
why. A budget is a very delicate document to put together, and Congress 
does not have the kind of hearings you would have here to know what to 
take out and what to put in and how to sew it back together again. So 
what's the point of bringing it over here except tradition? The 
chairman listened to the problems with bringing the D.C. budget to the 
Congress and heard even more problems than he expected.
  School begins in September, but by the time Congress finishes with 
the Federal budgets, even the earliest

[[Page H2023]]

point is September 30. The reason that most jurisdictions are on a July 
1 fiscal year and not a fiscal year that begins on October 1, as the 
Federal Government does, is precisely because of the importance of 
schools in every jurisdiction. But in the District, our schools and our 
city are handicapped by the fact that the budget isn't approved by the 
time school opens.
  That impressed the chairman, apparently, and he was impressed by the 
fact--and I will soon get to this issue--that the District government 
has faced shutdowns because its budget was here during fights over the 
Federal budget, which has resulted in the possibility of the shutdown 
of the D.C. government.
  Chairman Issa listened at the hearing and did something I've never 
seen a chairman of a committee do before in my years in the Congress. 
He listened so intently, heard so well that he announced as the hearing 
ended that he intended to write a bill for DC budget autonomy. Everyone 
was surprised. His staff told us they had no idea in advance. Mr. Issa 
decided upon hearing the witnesses at his hearing.
  That is, I must say to my colleagues and to members of the public, a 
civics lesson in committee work at its best. The chairman listened. The 
chairman made a decision. The chairman then went to work.
  He worked on several versions of a budget autonomy bill, and 
exchanged them with me, with the mayor, and with other officials in the 
city. There were some issues, and we indicated what those difficulties 
would be operationally. Then, he announced his final proposal for a DC 
budget autonomy bill. I can tell you that, while it has its own form 
that clearly bears his signature, in many ways it mirrors my own DC 
Budget Autonomy Act.
  You can imagine how thrilled we were that the chairman of the full 
committee had, indeed, decided that it was in the best interest of the 
District of Columbia and in the best interest of the Congress for the 
District's budget to remain in the District and to be implemented in 
the same way that the budgets of every other jurisdiction in the United 
States, except the budget of the District, are implemented. June 30 
comes. On July 1, other jurisdictions begin to implement their budget. 
They prepare for school, and they are ready when school begins.
  Mr. Issa's bill came to the attention of the President of the United 
States. The President had weighed in the year before for budget 
autonomy, but upon hearing of Mr. Issa's bill, he included in his own 
budget, which was submitted this year, the following language:

       Consistent with the principle of home rule, it is the 
     administration's view that the District's local budget should 
     be authorized to take effect without a separate annual 
     Federal appropriation bill. The administration will work with 
     Congress and the mayor to pass legislation to amend the D.C. 
     Home Rule Act to provide the District with local budget 
     autonomy.

  That's the President's statement, inspired by the Republican 
chairman's proposal for budget autonomy. I know that there are many in 
this Chamber and in the public who see rare instances--perhaps none--of 
bipartisan ideas from this Congress. There you see one. You see a 
Democratic President. You see a strong Republican chairman.
  Mr. Speaker, that is not all.
  Mr. Issa was moved, in part, to address budget autonomy because of 
the problems the District has had with Federal shutdown threats. Most 
of America is aware of the shutdown threats. By the skin of our teeth, 
we barely missed a shutdown a year ago. No one believes, of course, 
that the underlying issues had anything to do with the District of 
Columbia budget. Those issues are well-known. They involve 
disagreements between Democrats and Republicans over Federal issues 
like the Federal deficit. The District has long had a balanced budget, 
and as I indicated before, beyond its balanced budget, it has the 
highest surplus in the United States.
  So why is the District of Columbia caught in Federal fights that lead 
to the possibility of shutdowns of the Federal Government?

                              {time}  1610

  If the D.C. budget is here, if the budget of the District of Columbia 
is here and has not been passed by the Congress--and it usually is not 
passed until, of course, the Federal budgets are passed, or certainly 
no sooner than September 30--then the District of Columbia's local 
budget gets thrown in the pot with a budget of--for instance--Health 
and Human Services, the Department of Defense, all of the Federal 
agencies that get shut down, though there's nothing that the District 
can do to extricate itself from this fight, because this fight does not 
involve any concession that the District can make--it involves only 
Federal issues--nevertheless, the District government will get shut 
down with the Federal Government.
  There were three shutdown threats in 2011. The Federal Government 
didn't get shut down, although I can tell you it came so close to being 
shut down I don't even like to think about it. The problem is that 
every time there is the threat of a Federal shutdown, the local 
government of the District of Columbia has to spend time and money 
preparing to shutdown, whether or not it occurs.
  Imagine your county, imagine your city pulling people together three 
times to prepare for a shutdown, to prepare for which agencies can keep 
going and which agencies to shut down. Because in the event of a 
shutdown, the only agencies that can be kept in operation are essential 
agencies. Three times the District of Columbia government had to do 
that. The District of Columbia is going through the same problems that 
every local jurisdiction is having as we climb out of the Great 
Recession. You can imagine what a waste of time and energy that was.
  That was one of the issues that made Chairman Issa think through the 
notion of budget autonomy. I myself have had several bills to keep the 
District government from shutting down in the case of a Federal 
Government shutdown. I put in a bill each fiscal year saying that if 
the Federal Government shuts down, the District can spend its own local 
funds, no other funds, no Federal funds, nobody can spend those, but 
its own local funds. Those bills have not passed.
  Just 2 months ago, I warned the mayor that we could be headed for a 
shutdown this year because the Senate and the House have different 
budgets. An agreement was reached between the two Chambers in the 
Budget Control Act about the level of spending in 2013. While the 
Senate has stuck to that number, the House is using another number. So 
if the two don't agree, and they each come forward with different 
appropriation bills, the country could be faced again with the possible 
shutdown of the Federal Government.
  That's bad enough for the country, but suppose you were the mayor of 
the District of Columbia or a member of the city council and had to 
consider that there could be a shutdown of the District government over 
the fact that the House and the Senate are using different budget 
numbers this year? That would be enough to make you, I think, tremble, 
as I'm sure the District is now as it considers what to do. Of course, 
Congress is going to try to reach some agreement. But at the moment, 
they're going in absolutely divergent directions, despite having 
reached an agreement on what the number would be for the budget this 
year.
  The President, noting these shutdown threats and the cost to the 
taxpayers of the District of Columbia, did something quite unusual. He 
not only submitted his views on budget autonomy--that he favored it--he 
submitted actual language that would keep the District open in case of 
a shutdown. I would like to submit that language for the record.
  The language referred to is as follows:

       Consistent with the principle of home rule, it is the 
     Administration's view that the District's local budget should 
     be authorized to take effect without a separate annual 
     Federal appropriations bill. The Administration will work 
     with Congress and the Mayor to pass legislation to amend the 
     D.C. Home Rule Act to provide the District with local budget 
     autonomy.

  When the President submits the language to the Congress, that puts a 
very special emphasis on the need for what he is asking for.
  Mr. Speaker, not only have you had the President and Mr. Issa; the 
majority leader of this body, Mr. Cantor, has indicated that he 
supports budget autonomy. His spokesman said that ``he is certainly 
willing to work with the District toward its goal of budget autonomy.'' 
That's the first time that a leader of my friends on the other side of 
the aisle has indicated public support for budget autonomy.

[[Page H2024]]

  This afternoon, I want to thank Mr. Cantor personally for doing so. 
Mr. Cantor may have been moved by his own Governor. The Republican 
Governor of Virginia, Governor Bob McDonnell, wrote to Majority Leader 
Cantor indicating that he supports budget autonomy for the District.
  One of the reasons he gave was that 100,000 Virginians come to the 
District of Columbia to work every day in the private and Federal 
sector, and that if the District government shuts down, those 100,000 
residents from Virginia, who had nothing to do with this fight--just as 
the District of Columbia had nothing to do with the Federal fight--are 
seriously inconvenienced.
  The fact that these two Virginians from our region have spoken out 
speaks to the practical reality behind budget autonomy. In addition, 
the Governor of Virginia made it clear he did not see how the mayor of 
the District of Columbia could run his city when he could not be 
certain when his budget would be passed. Here you have one chief 
executive speaking to another, and both from different parties.
  The case we think, Mr. Speaker, has been made. It has been made here 
by the leadership of this body and the leadership of the Senate, and it 
has been made in the country as leaders have stepped forward to 
indicate that the rational thing to do, the American thing to do, if 
you will, is to respect the right of a local jurisdiction to spend its 
own local money without coming to a national body which has had nothing 
to do with raising those funds.
  If I could inquire, Mr. Speaker, how much time I have remaining?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentlewoman has 4 minutes remaining.
  Ms. NORTON. I want to summarize how much on the same page Democrats 
and Republicans are on the proposition that D.C. should control D.C.'s 
local budget. There's nothing radical about that one, my friends. It 
would be hard to go out in the street of your city or your county and 
get a different response.
  So it's not surprising, but it's very important to have these poll 
figures, which back up where Chairman Issa is trying to take us, where 
Mr. Cantor is trying to take us, where the Governor of Virginia is 
trying to take us, where D.C. officials, and, I hope, the Congress will 
come this year. The polls show very gratifying numbers, but they are 
numbers that reflect where Americans always are. Americans are, first, 
local people. They want to do as much locally as possible. They 
understand that there are national issues. They know that one of those 
issues is not their own local money.
  Mr. Speaker, this week, the District of Columbia celebrated D.C. 
Emancipation Day, and, of course, it's worthy of celebration, when this 
city was the first jurisdiction whose slaves were freed by Abraham 
Lincoln. Isn't it amazing that the Nation's capital had slavery in 
1862?

                              {time}  1620

  But it is very hard to celebrate Emancipation Day in the District of 
Columbia when your own local funds cannot be spent by your own local 
people. We raise about $6 billion in local funds. It is a very diverse 
city of people from all walks of life with all levels of income, and 
there is absolute agreement across all political lines that the one 
thing we deserve is budget autonomy.
  This year was the 150th anniversary of the liberation of slaves by 
Abraham Lincoln in the District of Columbia. We noted that the slaves 
had to be very grateful to be liberated because there was nothing they 
could do to liberate themselves. Armed struggle was certainly not 
possible for slaves here or anywhere else. Peaceful opposition to 
slavery would have brought armed struggle against their peaceful 
opposition, so they had to wait to be liberated.
  The people of the District of Columbia understand it is up to them to 
liberate themselves, but they, too, cannot free themselves entirely. 
They do not have a Member who has a vote on the floor of the United 
States Congress. I vote in committee. I do not have the right to vote 
for final passage of any legislation.
  Yet my residents have been in every war the Nation has fought since 
the Nation was created. We pay federal income taxes at the highest 
levels. We're second per capita in federal income taxes among the 50 
States and the District of Columbia. So you can imagine that it is with 
some anguish that we send our own local budget to people we respect but 
people who have contributed nothing to the money we have raised in our 
city.
  I thank all who have supported us here in the Congress, and I look 
forward to the day, which I hope will be this year, when there will be 
budget autonomy for the District of Columbia.
  I yield back the balance of my time.

       ``The following is the actual proposal the president 
     included in his fiscal year 2013 budget to prevent a D.C. 
     government shutdown in the event of a federal government 
     shutdown:''
       Sec. 817. Section 446 of the Home Rule Act (D.C. Official 
     Code sec. 1 204.46) is amended by adding the following at the 
     end of its fourth sentence, before the period ``: Provided, 
     That, notwithstanding any other provision of this Act, 
     effective for fiscal year 2013, and for each succeeding 
     fiscal year, during a period in which there is an absence of 
     a federal appropriations act authorizing the expenditure of 
     District of Columbia local funds, the District of Columbia 
     may obligate and expend local funds for programs and 
     activities at the rate set forth in the Budget Request Act 
     adopted by the Council, or a reprogramming adopted pursuant 
     to this section.'' (Financial Services and General Government 
     Appropriations Act, 2012.)
                                  ____


                 Purple Insights Poll, April 5 9, 2012

       Q: The budget of the city of Washington, D.C. is funded by 
     local residents' tax dollars. Do you think that the decisions 
     about Washington, D.C.'s local budget should be made by 
     Washington, D.C. taxpayers and their own elected officials OR 
     should those budget decisions be made by the U.S. Congress?
       71% of Democrats believe D.C. should control D.C. local 
     budget
       72% of Republicans believe D.C. should control D.C. local 
     budget
       75% of Independents believe D.C. should control D.C. local 
     budget
       68% of Males believe D.C. should control D.C. local budget
       73% of Females believe D.C. should control D.C. local 
     budget
       60% with High School or Less believe D.C. should control 
     D.C. local budget
       78% with Some College believe D.C. should control D.C. 
     local budget
       80% of College Graduates believe D.C. should control D.C. 
     local budget
       69% in the Northeast believe D.C. should control D.C. local 
     budget
       74% in the Midwest believe D.C. should control D.C. local 
     budget
       68% in the South believe D.C. should control D.C. local 
     budget
       72% in the West believe D.C. should control D.C. local 
     budget
       24% of Democrats believe Congress should control D.C. local 
     budget
       22% of Republicans believe Congress should control D.C. 
     local budget
       20% of Independents believe Congress should control D.C. 
     local budget
       26% of Males believe Congress should control D.C. local 
     budget
       20% of Females believe Congress should control D.C. local 
     budget
       33% with High School or Less believe Congress should 
     control D.C. local budget
       18% with Some College believe Congress should control D.C. 
     local budget
       13% of College Graduates believe Congress should control 
     D.C. local budget
       26% in the Northeast believe Congress should control D.C. 
     local budget
       19% in the Midwest believe Congress should control D.C. 
     local budget
       25% in the South believe Congress should control D.C. local 
     budget
       6% in the West believe Congress should control D.C. local 
     budget
       5% of Democrats do not know whether D.C. or Congress should 
     not control D.C. local budget
       6% of Republicans do not know whether D.C. or Congress 
     should not control D.C. local budget
       6% of Independents do not know whether D.C. or Congress 
     should control D.C. local budget
       5% of Males do not know whether D.C. or Congress should 
     control D.C. local budget
       7% of Females do not know whether D.C. or Congress should 
     control D.C. local budget
       7% with High School or Less do not know whether D.C. or 
     Congress should control D.C. local budget
       4% with Some College do not know whether D.C. or Congress 
     should control D.C. local budget
       7% of College Graduates do not know whether D.C. or 
     Congress should control D.C. local budget
       5% in the Northeast do not know whether D.C. or Congress 
     should control D.C. local budget
       7% in the Midwest do not know whether D.C. or Congress 
     should control D.C. local budget
       7% in the South do not know whether D.C. or Congress should 
     control D.C. local budget
       6% in the West do not know whether D.C. or Congress should 
     control D.C. local budget


                              Methodology

       National omnibus interviews of 1,007 adults age 18 and 
     older in the continental United States on April 5 9, 2012 
     conducted via a random digit dialing methodology telephone 
     and cell phone methodology.

[[Page H2025]]

       The sample consisted of:
       --757 interviews from the landline sample
       --250 interviews from the cell phone sample
       --504 men
       --503 women
       The data is weighted to reflect the geographic, 
     demographic, and socioeconomic information that are known for 
     the population as well as measured in the survey.

                          ____________________