Reply to DC Statehood Tax Implications

Forum Index » Metropolitan DC Local Politics

Reply to "DC Statehood Tax Implications"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I'm a DC native and very pro-statehood, but a lot of my fellow pro-staters are missing some important cost context.

Yes, the variable federal payment stopped in the 90s, but as part of the bargain, the feds assumed the entire cost of the DC Courts and housing DC prisoners.  (They've long picked up the tab of all prosecution and public defense in DC.)  Not saying it's a reason to give up statehood, but paying for the courts, prosecutors, defenders, and prisoners will take a chunk of change.

To do some basic back of the envelope math, the DC Courts budget is $350mil; there are about 6,000 DC prisoners in federal jails @ $37k a person annually, so $222mil; the DC public defender service costs a little over $42mil, the USAO doesn't publish separate budget figures, but the DC's AG's office does, so let's assume it would have to triple in size to handle all felonies in the district, at an additional cost of $200mil.  Grand total: $815 mil, or about a 1% of the $8.6 bil portion of DC's budget.  That's not massive but it's not nothing.  (Still not a good reason to deny DC residents meaningful voting rights and sovereignty.)[/quote]

Should say "1% of the $8.6 bil local portion of DC's budget"[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics