New Hopes For DC Tax Reforms

Local listservs are buzzing. Advocacy groups are huddling. We’re all concerned about how the DC Council will close the $175 million gap in the current budget.

We know that spending cuts will be at least part of the answer. What they’ll be and how big are open questions. But if past is prologue, programs that serve the needs of low-income residents will be highly vulnerable.

Last year, funding for human services and other programs for low-income people took at $49 million hit — the second largest after public education. And it could have been worse if the District hadn’t still had unused federal stimulus funds for our schools.

It would have been better if Mayor Fenty and the DC Council had focused more on the revenue side of the ledger. What we got were a couple of sales and excise tax increases, plus freezes in the homestead property deduction and the standard exemption and personal deduction in the income tax — all disproportionately costly for low-income residents.

This year a similar story. Some fee increases, a couple of highly targeted taxes and one regressive expansion in the sales tax, which now covers soft drinks, but not various services used mostly by higher-income residents.

But maybe the day for a serious look at the local tax structure has dawned. Soon-to-be-mayor Vincent Gray has remarked that services have been cut to the bone. “Actually, we’ve cut down to the bone marrow,” he’s said.

More importantly, he’s reportedly told attendees at two successive ward meetings that he’s ready to consider new or expanded revenue raisers.

As you may recall, the Save Our Safety Net coalition championed two news brackets last spring — a 9% rate for residents with incomes over $200,000 and a 9.4% rate for those with incomes over $1 million.

SOS-DC is back on the case — hopeful that it can help shift Gray and a couple of other Councilmembers to the “yea” column. How many have to shift depends on when the Council gets around to voting.

SOS is still working as the grassroots arm of the Fair Budget Coalition and an overlapping coalition including FBC members, local labor organizations and some faith-based and other community groups.

They’re now focusing on one new tax bracket — 1% higher for residents earning over $200,000. This, I assume, is after the adjustments the federal tax code permits.

Gray has said that he thinks District residents will at least be open to tax increases if they understand how damaging a cuts-only approach to budget balancing will be. “If we can make the case that the vulnerable are going to be imperiled, I think there are going to be a lot of people who are going to entertain some sort of tax increase.”

“Some sort,” of course, covers a lot of territory. But a new top tax bracket certainly could be there, along with some other measures that would increase both revenues and fairness. I’m still hopeful eliminating the District’s almost unique exemption for interest paid on out-of-state bonds.

Gray has reportedly challenged advocates to make the case to the public. Originally, I thought this was shifting the burden where it didn’t belong. Now, however, it appears that what he actually wants are the facts, figures and, very importantly, the stories to help him make the case.

He’s planning to work with fellow Councilmembers on a list of potential budget cuts and then seek public input on whether taxes should be raised instead. So look for announcements of public hearings — or maybe just one of those all-nighters the Council sometimes perpetrates.

In the meantime, there’s a need to show that we, like Gray, wouldn’t mind paying more if the trade-off were protecting investments in our safety net and other key programs that can give low-income residents a better chance at finding full-time, living-wage work.

SOS-DC has an editable letter we can send to our representatives on the Council. A quick, easy way to voice our support for a balanced approach to budget balancing.

DC Mayor Discounts Limits On Summer Youth Employment Program

When is a budget not a budget? Apparently, when Mayor Fenty doesn’t like it. Yesterday’s Washington Post reports that this year’s Summer Youth Employment Program wound up costing $41 million–considerably more than the City Council originally approved.

The SYEP appropriation for next year is $20 million–for a program limited to six weeks and a maximum of 21,000 participants. But the Mayor reportedly said he’s determined to find a way around the caps.

Set aside the question of whether the SYEP should be expanded or rather refocused on quality instead of quantity, as experts have recommended. Last time I checked, programs were supposed to operate within their approved budgets. If a chief executive wanted more money, he was supposed to go back to the legislature and ask for it.

And last time I checked, the Council had made deep cuts in crucial safety net programs to balance the city’s budget. It might well have to close yet another budget gap. This seems hardly the time for ignoring any expenditure cap–let alone one designed to ensure that D.C. youth have a properly supervised, skill-building work experience.

New Report Documents Violence Against Homeless People

Every once in awhile, we read about some act of violence against a homeless person. Young men set fire to a homeless man. A teenager beats a homeless man to death with a baseball bat. Twin brothers terrorize homeless people in a public park–a woman thrown down a flight of stairs, a sleeping man pounded with his own bicycle, another stabbed.

For 10 years now, the National Coalition for the Homeless has been issuing annual reports on crimes like these. It’s just published the latest.

As NCH readily acknowledges, its data are incomplete, based on news articles and reports from advocates, service providers and homeless and formerly homeless people themselves. But they’re still enough to give one pause.

• In 2008 alone, 106 homeless people were subject to violent attacks, 27 of them fatal.
• These attacks occurred in 22 states and the District of Columbia.
• They included shootings, beatings, rapes, other assaults and at least three human torchings.
• Victims were predominantly middle-aged and elderly. Of those whose attackers were formally accused, 17.3% were in their 50′s and 10.9% were over 60.

The NCH data are just the tip of the iceberg. Homeless people are understandably reluctant to call the police. And law enforcement authorities don’t have to keep records identifying crimes that seem motivated in whole or in part by the homelessness of the victim. But even the relatively little we know tells us there’s a serious nationwide problem.

So what’s to do? The ultimate solution, of course, is to create enough affordable and permanent supportive housing so that no one has to be homeless any more.

In the interim, we have to look for other policy solutions. One NCH recommends is legislation to make homeless people a protected class under existing hate crimes laws.

The District of Columbia has just joined a relatively small number of jurisdictions in enacting such legislation. Under the just-signed emergency crime bill, the Bias-Related Crime Act is amended to include crimes based on a prejudice against homelessness. This will allow a court to impose up to one and a half times the ordinary maximum fine or jail term if a crime against a homeless person was committed at least in part because of the victim’s homelessness.

The measure is important, I think, as an expression of our collective revulsion against senseless, hateful acts. But I doubt the tougher penalties will serve as a deterrent.

After all, crimes like those in the NCH report aren’t based on rational risk/benefit calculations. Most seem prompted by a felt need for the thrill, release and peer validation of attacking a defenseless person. Some apparently are also fueled by hatred or contempt of homeless people. In short, they’re a symptom of something profoundly wrong in our culture.

What else can we think when someone who strangled and cracked open the skull of a homeless man said, when told who the victim was, “Oh him, he’s just a beggar, a vagrant.”? Or when others arrested for similar crimes said they did it for fun or just because they could?

There’s a pathology here that’s beyond my ken. But I think NCH is right to lay part of the blame on laws that target homeless people for innocuous acts like sitting or sleeping in public places, loafing, loitering or living in cars–not to mention laws that prohibit feeding them.

So passing hate crimes laws won’t be enough. Nor, I think, will eliminating laws that criminalize homelessness or putting homeless education programs in our schools, as NCH also recommends. But these are all steps in the right direction.

Not as good as ending homelessness or the deep-seated alienation and rage of young men who get pumped up by “beat[ing] down some bums.” But positive nonetheless.

Bring Free Suppers To Poor DC Children

I wrote awhile ago about the enormous stress on after-school programs in the District. More children are showing up for these programs hungry because they didn’t have dinner the night before. One more thing to chalk up to the recession.

The best these programs can do is serve more hefty snacks and let children take extras home. Even this is creating big budget pressures because the federal government reimburses at a maximum of $0.74 per snack. And, for sites that aren’t run by public schools, snacks for children over 12 aren’t reimbursed at all.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. Under existing legislation, eligible programs in 10 states can get reimbursed for serving suppers. The Fiscal Year 2010 agriculture appropriations bill passed by the U.S. House of Representatives would add the District to the list.

The companion bill passed by the Senate Appropriations Committee wouldn’t. But the full Senate could add D.C. when the bill comes to the floor.

Those of you who don’t live in D.C. can support this action by e-mailing or calling your Senators. It’s a good step toward expanding the supper program nationwide when the Child Nutrition Act is reauthorized. No comment here on how we D.C. residents lack our own leverage.

The District has made great strides with its after-school nutrition programs. In 2008, they served about 14,650 children–more than five and a half times as many as in 2004. Just think what a difference it would make if even some of these programs could serve all school-age children a healthy evening meal.