JUST SAY NO TO A DC VOTE IN CONGRESS PART 2

[Psycho]

In the last edition of DC Watch - TheMail [02-15-2007] Gary and Dorothy devoted almost an entire edition to the issue of voting rights for the District of Columbia.

 

I would challenge the people over at DC Vote, Mayor Fenty and the entire DC City Council to come forward and tell the people of DC how they would be better off with a congressional vote versus what I say is a better for the people of DC; namely, federal tax-exempt status.

 

Let’s be real about it all. Who has so far benefited from the efforts of DC Vote? Right, people like Joe Sternlieb who helped create DC Vote, obtained various funding for it, paid himself a nice salary which helped by him a home in the upscale area of ward 3. Yet, has anybody benefited from DC Vote as much as Joe Sternlieb has? Of course not!

 

Assume that DC gets full congressional rights to vote on everything. I again would ask DC Vote, Mayor Fenty and the entire DC City Council to come forward and tell the people of DC how they would be better off with such a vote. I mean just one vote in a body of 435 people who get to vote on all issues versus the average worker putting $4,800.00 back in their pocket not in the pockets of Uncle Sam.

 

The only people who would benefit from DC getting full congressional voting rights are the District’s political elite and its wealthiest citizens who make over $200k a year but it would not trickle down to anybody else.

 

The people of the US territories are not clamoring like DC is to get a vote as they do not want to give up that tax exempt status.

 

As I said before, DC would seem boom times with its residents being exempt from federal taxes with: 1) a major influx of new residents (300,000 in the next decade) who want the benefits of no federal taxation; 2) a major housing boom to meet the needs of new residents; 3) a major increase in DC tax revenues; 4) a major increase in businesses wanting to locate in DC to tap into our new labor pool; 5) a major increase in money in each Washingtonians’ pocket that would be spent and bolster the DC economy; and more, but DC would not change nor grow under full congressional voting rights.

 

Remember people, it is not you who get the vote but just one person who does not always seek what all of us do.

 

If we held a public referendum on this issue, I would bet that 95% of the voters would chose tax exempt status versus a congressional vote when the simple reality of the two are laid out.

 

It is time for DC Vote and others to stop misleading people about any benefits in a congressional vote and our local leaders need to promote equally tax exempt status in the alternative before Congress out of fair play!