Reply to GOP spending bill seeking immediate $1 billion in cuts to DC budget

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]So because you don’t like bike lanes and liberal criminal justice policies, congress should take taxpayer money and just let it sit unused?  I don’t follow this logic.[/quote]

There is no logic. But, it certainly lends credence to the theory that crime bros and the obsesses bike lane detractors had a political motive. [/quote]

I think you're whistling past the graveyard.  Every construction project that hasn't started needs to stop in order to preserve cash flow.

Since you mentioned it, I do think that $32 million for new bike lanes, $53 million for a bike bridge, $60 million for 3 bike trails, $30 million for a bike overpass from Anacostia Metro to Barry Farms and some portion of the $34 million for transportation mitigation is excessive.  That's almost $200 million!  But that's a local disagreement and none of Congress' business.  Lord knows they have an even bigger wasteful spending problem.

Of course there are other questionable large expenditures for us as well.  $463 million for the DC jail annex, $515 million for CapitalOne Arena, close to $300 million for the streetcar, $52 million for Vision Zero, $109 million for bus only lanes, $30 million for traffic safety inputs, multiple $100 million+ school renovations.

There's over $200 million appropriated for streetscaping, most of which is going to Chinatown.  Heck, almost $50 million was appropriated for modernization of Chevy Chase library and rec center even though they're planning on tearing them down.  And then there are things like that bike bridge which was supposed to be supplemented by federal grants that likely don't exist anymore.  That doesn't even get into the small potatoes waste like violence interrupters, educational tech subscriptions, and community ambassadors.  At this point it is about priorities and preserving our credibility.

It's a bad thing that Congress is meddling in purely local affairs.  But there's nothing we can do.  We are second class citizens and don't have a legal leg to stand on for this fight.  The most important thing for us right now is making sure that necessary things, like HVAC for schools, do not get cut and that home rule survives this moment.

To do that we need to comply around the edges and the more that can be cut from capital projects the better.  There will be a bigger more important fight to come and we need to be as well prepared as we can be from both a fiscal and political standpoint.  Having extra money in the rainy day fund will be very useful.

One of those bigger things I'm worried about is the expropriation/reappropriation of the funding for these projects by Elon and Trump.  In my opinion we need to get as lean as possible in order to prevent them from having extra pots of money to steal from.  At some point Bowser is going to have to resign, probably next year, and wish Congress luck on running things.  The less capital projects we have the better.
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