[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 129 (Thursday, September 26, 2013)]
[House]
[Pages H5875-H5878]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 BUDGET AUTONOMY FOR DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA AMIDST THREAT OF GOVERNMENT 
                                SHUTDOWN

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Massie). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 3, 2013, the Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from 
the District of Columbia (Ms. Norton) for 30 minutes.
  Ms. NORTON. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
  Last week, the Nation's Capital--the District of Columbia--was in 
great grief and pain as we lost 12 employees at the Washington Navy 
Yard on Monday. I want to thank Members who

[[Page H5876]]

have expressed their condolences when they've seen me here.
  Tuesday, I was on this floor for a moment of silence with four 
Members of Congress who had served in the Navy even though this is 
actually a naval installation which houses, largely, Federal civilian 
employees of the Naval Sea Systems Command. Sunday, I was at a memorial 
service for the 12 with the President and other Members of Congress and 
a large group of friends and families of the 12. Yesterday, I attended 
the funeral of Arthur Lee Daniels, a most sobering and sad funeral of a 
man who supported his wife and children and who was much beloved by 
them. He was the breadwinner, and now he is gone.
  All during that week, however Mr. Speaker, there was another cloud 
hanging over this city that I could not forget, that, strange as it may 
seem, the shutdown threat facing the Federal Government was also facing 
the District of Columbia. We are talking about a local budget and a 
budget that, by rights, should not be in the Congress at all. September 
30 is the end of the fiscal year. That is Monday--4 days away. The 
prospect of a government shutdown increases as each day passes. All 
that we hear here are permutations on the conditions that have now been 
put on the congressional resolution for keeping the government open, so 
I cannot assume that there will not be a shutdown, at least, for a 
short period of time. Considering the shutdown of 1995, anyone who 
reads history or who was here then, I think, would not want that to 
happen again.
  The cost of a shutdown to the Nation's Capital according to the 
figures from 2011--the cost of a shutdown threat, because the 
government has not shut down in recent years, but there were three 
possible shutdowns in 2011. The cost of a shutdown was $131,000 to the 
District of Columbia and 3,000 staff hours. That's money and time that 
should be spent on running a big city.
  I am sure Members must be saying, Well, what is it that the District 
of Columbia did to make the Congress want its budget to come to the 
Congress? Because that's anathema to most Members of Congress. I think 
most Members of Congress would almost rather repeat the Revolution of 
our forefathers rather than see one's local budget here before Members 
who know nothing of it and have nothing to do with it and don't have a 
dime in it. This is a matter of history and anachronism that nobody 
should be proud of.
  We are talking about a local budget of $8 billion in local money, and 
there is not anything about the D.C. budget that has summoned it to the 
Congress. It comes because it has always come. It's on automatic pilot, 
despite a budget autonomy referendum that has been overwhelmingly 
passed in the city, despite my budget autonomy bill, despite my 
statehood bill; but we are only talking about the local budget now, 
about local budget autonomy.
  So, my friends, I can say there is nothing about the D.C. budget that 
causes it to be here. On the contrary, the District of Columbia has a 
$1.5 billion reserve. It puts money in its reserves every year--in good 
times and bad times. That is one of the largest reserves in the United 
States today. Most jurisdictions would be proud to have any reserve at 
all these days. So far from there being something about the D.C. 
budget, there ought to be a resolution on this floor that commends the 
District of Columbia for how it has handled its local budget. Its 
budget was submitted here, on time. The budget was in such good shape 
that it was easily approved by both appropriations committees. There it 
sits in the House and Senate, along with Federal appropriations--
although the District budget alone among them is not a Federal 
appropriation. It is a local budget.
  So in this matter that ties the city up in the Congress, there is no 
budget issue. Indeed, the appropriators have never interfered or tried 
to change the local budget. There is no way they could do so. A local 
budget is put together with great delicacy after local subcommittee 
hearings and other hearings and negotiations between the council and 
the Mayor, with trimmings here and additions there. No one would dare 
touch it. In my more than 20 years in Congress--and most of my time has 
been spent in the minority--no one on either side of the aisle has 
attempted to get into the innards of the District budget.
  I have every confidence in the District budget because the District 
of Columbia has something that no other jurisdiction in the United 
States has. It has an independent chief financial officer who serves on 
a 5-year term and who cannot be fired by the Mayor or city council 
except for cause, and you know what ``cause'' means. He is independent. 
You can't spend money unless he passes off on it. The money isn't 
available unless he says so. Of course, there is the same kind of 
discretion that your own local jurisdictions have to spend money, but 
it's not nearly the kind of discretion you're used to. Indeed, no 
political figure--no other mayor or council or local legislature--has a 
chief financial officer who gets the final say on budgetary matters.
  You see, there is nothing that any Member could raise about the 
budget. If anything, the District budget is subject to a kind of 
scrutiny that no Member's local budget is. There are Members in this 
body whose local or state budgets are balanced only by straws and 
fluff. Ours is a balanced budget that has had the sanction not only of 
a Mayor and a city council, but of a chief financial officer.
  So, you say, there must be some good motive here. After all, who 
would want to bring a big, complicated city to its knees for nothing. 
The answer, my friends, is: no one. There is no one in this body or in 
the other body who has called for or made a statement that would lead 
you to believe that she is for the present predicament of the District 
of Columbia's, allowing the city to close down if the Federal 
Government shuts down.

  Nor is this one of the usual ideological or philosophical differences 
between the two sides where Democrats and Republicans have deep 
differences on matters like their budgets or health care or the rest--
not this one. No one complains about the budget and how it is put 
together. No ideological or philosophical differences have been raised; 
and if there were some, I think there would have been no hesitation in 
raising them.
  So there is nothing in D.C.'s local budget for any Member of this 
House. There is nothing in a threat of a shutdown for any Member of the 
House. There is nothing in a shutdown, itself, and here I am referring 
to a local government shutdown. Part of the reason it goes on is that 
most Members don't pay attention to any local jurisdiction, even one 
right in their faces--the Nation's Capital's budget. That's not what 
they've been sent here to do. Most don't even know about it. I'm sure 
they don't care about it.
  So this historic anomaly, doing great damage to the city, continues. 
Worse, this matter with our local budget here now, facing the great 
Nation's Capital with a shutdown, violates every principle of 
federalism. My colleagues on the other side stand on federalism, it 
would appear, above all other matters; and I should think they would be 
the first to want the local budget out of the hands of the ``big foot'' 
Federal Government. On my side of the aisle, there are deep feelings 
about local control as well.
  Put yourself in my position. How would any Member of this House feel 
or react if its local money had to pass any eyes in this Chamber who 
had nothing to do with raising that local money? I don't have the words 
to say what you would say in that circumstance. If this government were 
founded on any principle, it was founded on the principle of 
federalism, and if there is any meaning to federalism, it begins with 
money: no taxation without representation.
  You, Members of the House and Senate, elected by your constituents, 
don't get to say what my constituents do with their own money. That's a 
basic principle of American federalism.
  The gentlelady from Texas.
  Ms. JACKSON LEE. I was in my office, Congresswoman, and I could not 
help but both agree and hear you.
  I wanted to come just to applaud you for, first of all, restoring and 
educating this House on the issues of federalism, local control, and 
also of reintroducing them to Washington, D.C., which gained local 
control and gained the right to elect its local officials. Also--maybe 
most people don't know--it has an operational budget that is balanced 
and that, in actuality, could continue to run its services for its 
people, as the Congresswoman has indicated, but for

[[Page H5877]]

the pass-through that is required here in the House of Representatives.

                              {time}  1800

  I simply wanted to come and applaud you and say a government shutdown 
is for naught. It is not good for anyone, and it is shameful that it is 
tied to the defunding of ObamaCare when the millions of Washingtonians, 
who are here, who dutifully provide for this House and this Senate and 
all of those who come in and out of Washington, D.C., the millions of 
tourists, the international guests, that we would dare tell them, 
without a vote, without a voice, in terms of the voting voice, to say 
not only are we shutting down the government that is going to hurt all 
of America, we're going to shut you down and you're in local control 
with your own monies, ready to run, ready to help, ready to provide for 
the safety and security of the comings and goings of those who work in 
the Federal Government in the House of Representatives.
  So I could not miss the opportunity to again reinforce my commitment 
to the legitimacy of Washington, its right to a voting representative 
in both the House and the Senate, and, as well, the fact that you make 
a very potent argument, because in many of our jurisdictions, city 
government may still be operating. Of course, many people will be 
hurt--Social Security, the military, veterans, the soldiers' families 
who don't get a paycheck. What the Congresswoman is saying, and I want 
to add to that, insult to injury coming from this shutdown is the fact 
that a whole city would not be able to operate the Nation's Capital 
where people are now heading to by airplane for whatever visits they 
may have--tourists, international guests.
  I just met with an international leader today. They will all be 
coming to a city that will literally be shut down because my Republican 
friends want to defund ObamaCare and don't have the respect to give you 
the waiver, the position that you have asked for to make sure that 
Washington, D.C., runs.
  I thank you for alarming us. I hope that as we enter into our 
discussions tomorrow that we will raise this issue and that those of 
good common sense will come to their senses not only for the people of 
the District of Columbia in hearing your plea, but they'll come to 
their senses for the American people and keep this government running.
  Ms. NORTON. I thank the gentlelady from Texas, who, in her 
generosity, has come down to speak from the point of view of another 
Member who isn't facing this in her own jurisdiction but understands 
what we are facing from the Federal Government and how it must indeed 
be. I thank you very much for your generosity and for those very 
insightful statements about our predicament.
  Indeed, before I recognized the gentlelady, I was speaking about 
federalism. Essentially, our forefathers and foremothers distrusted 
Federal power. Nothing is more alien to Federal power than a local 
budget. I can't imagine that they would have abided that under any 
circumstances for the District of Columbia or any other city. This 
country is, in many ways, State and local-oriented, not Federal 
oriented. We need the Federal Government, we can't do without it; but 
as to our principles, we set up a Republic that separated local and 
State matters from Federal matters, and of those matters none is more 
salient than matters affecting the purse.
  The District does not regard itself as a hostage. We are not a 
hostage to this fight. If that were the case, we would try to negotiate 
our way out of it or give up. But we're not a part of this fight. When 
you're a hostage, somebody would say something about you or they would 
want something and they're using you to get it, but they're not. No one 
has claimed the District of Columbia as some link to the disputes that 
are going on here between the administration and Congress.
  We face a no-exit, no-way-out proposition because there's nothing we 
could, ourselves, do. There's nothing for us to give. There's no 
concession for us to make that would free us. We've got to depend upon 
the goodwill of the Speaker of the House of the majority, leader of the 
House of the majority, majority leader of the Senate and the minority 
leader of the Senate, their leadership, this leadership, and, of 
course, of our own minority leadership and the Members of the House and 
the Senate.
  I cannot believe they do not identify with me as I stand here trying 
to get recognition for my city to spend its own money. I believe if 
they put themselves in my place, there would be enough generosity in 
this body to agree that wherever we stand on the dispute before us, the 
District of Columbia is not a part of it and should not be dragged into 
it.
  This is a big, complicated city. It's run well. Its budget and 
reserves show that. The Federal Government, unlike the Nation's 
Capital, does not deliver direct services. That's what big cities and 
small towns do. A Federal shutdown will have its effects throughout the 
country because we've got almost 3 million Federal workers, and they 
will feel it first and foremost; and some of the services that the 
American people regard as essential, but which are not considered 
essential by the Office of Personnel Management, some of those services 
will not be available. But those are not like the services that many of 
you who live in the District of Columbia, Members of Congress, depend 
upon from the District of Columbia, like picking up your trash and 
garbage, for example. Even that would be stopped.
  Who would be affected, therefore? Well, clearly the 600,000 plus--
actually, it's close to 625,000 residents now because the District has 
been gaining population at a rate of about 1,000 a month. That speaks 
to how well the city is doing. That's how attractive the city is to 
people moving to this area. It clearly serves, first and foremost, its 
own citizens; but the District of Columbia is the Nation's Capital and 
serves private businesses. It serves Federal officials, visitors, 
Federal buildings, and foreign embassies. The circle is very broad of 
those who will feel any shutdown of the District of Columbia.
  Moreover, our finances, which have been doing so well, could be very 
negatively affected. The city has financing agreements of various 
kinds, such as a master equipment lease, for example. Like every city, 
it leases a wide variety of equipment, like some traffic lights and 
automobiles and public safety vehicles, and it has certificates of 
participation on some of its buildings, like its command center for 
public safety. All of those could face a default if a payment is due 
while a shutdown occurs. Of course, if that occurs, if they miss a 
payment, then, of course, under the terms of these agreements, the 
bondholders must be notified, and that would drive up the city's costs.

  Is there a Member that even knows this? Surely there are Members who 
would care that this unintended effect would lead to such serious 
results.
  Wall Street already penalizes the District because its budget has to 
come here at all. When your budget is not final when it is passed by 
your local officials, it has to come to a body like the Congress of the 
United States, even at its most stable, the fact of dual sanctions to 
approve a budget costs the city on Wall Street, not withstanding its 
handsome reserves.
  I'm not asking the Congress to do the unprecedented. Eighteen years 
ago when the government shut down--and it was shut down for a week--I 
went to Speaker Gingrich and asked him not to allow the District to 
shut down again. There were partial shutdowns, but each time a CR came. 
He included the District in the CR, and I'm asking for that relief, as 
well, from the House. It was a House and Senate in Republican hands and 
an administration in Democratic hands--it was also a polarized time--
yet the District of Columbia was kept open.
  There are remedies. We are included in the pending congressional 
resolution because, thanks to the appropriators for the last 10 years, 
if there is a congressional resolution or, for that matter, a bill, the 
District of Columbia can spend its local funds at next year's levels. 
That's not a big favor to the District of Columbia because, remember, 
we are not a Federal agency, which can only spend at the present year 
levels. But it was an important thing to do because it had calamitous 
effects, when the District could not move ahead with its own 
appropriations as planned and with contracts and with schools and with 
the many different operations that were affected, when you couldn't

[[Page H5878]]

spend at the next year's level which you had approved and had been 
approved by your chief financial officer.
  So I've had three bills. One was to amend the CR so that if it turns 
out to last until December 15 or if it turns out to be a week from now, 
whatever it is, the District would not have to lurch from CR to CR in 
short-term CRs. We've asked that the District be permitted to spend its 
funds for the 2014 fiscal year.
  Then I also have an independent bill that would allow the same 
remedy--not part of the CR--that the leadership could bring to the 
floor simply to allow the District to spend for the 2014 fiscal year, 
same terms, nothing changed, exactly what is now in the appropriation 
that is pending, except that it could now go forward for the next 
fiscal year.
  Then I have a permanent no-shutdown bill.
  What makes all of this so ironic is that pending, as I speak, is 
bicameral, bipartisan support for preventing government shutdowns.
  This summer, the Oversight and Government Reform Committee and the 
Senate Appropriations Committee approved larger bills that contained 
provisions that would permanently authorize the District government to 
remain open and spend its local funds. The President's fiscal year 2013 
budget contains the same authorization, and the appropriators in the 
House have acknowledged the harm done to the District by these 
shutdowns and asked the authorizers to proceed.

                              {time}  1815

  As we move closer to the government shutdown, the need to free the 
District's budget from the grasp of a dispute that shows no sign of 
ending has become more clear. These continuing resolutions, and the 
preparations for shutdown are having a punitive effect on the Nation's 
Capital.
  The Nation's Capital is an innocent party to this Federal dispute. 
Only legislation like the three bills I have just named or my budget or 
autonomy legislation would keep the Nation's Capital from being 
embroiled in Federal fights. I ask Members to consider what I have said 
here this evening and to free the city from disputes I don't think you 
mean us to be a part of.
  I thank the Speaker and yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________