President Barack Obama’s 2010 budget proposal includes nearly $20 million for “permanent supportive housing programs” in D.C., $12 million to keep the District’s voucher program alive — and it lifts restrictions on the use of local money for abortions.
The massive $3.4 trillion plan released Thursday includes some hits and misses for D.C. and the surrounding area compared to previous years. Obama, for example, nixed a $7 million payment to the D.C. Public Library, a priority of former First Lady Laura Bush. But it includes $74.4 million for a “school improvement program” broken down like this: $42.2 million for public schools, $20 million for charter schools and $12.2 million for private school vouchers, a program that Congressional Democrats had sought to kill.
The budget language does not allow new participants into the voucher system, but it will allow the 1,700 current enrollees to continue receiving their $7,500 annual grants until they graduate or leave school.
The president also eliminates language that bars the District from spending anything on abortions or health coverage that subsidizes abortions. Instead, D.C. will simply be banned from using federal money for that purpose. D.C. Councilman David Catania, chairman of the health committee, declined comment.
Obama offers $20 million for the D.C. Water and Sewer Authority, up from $16 million in 2009, provided that WASA match the grant 100 percent. He also provides $14 million for construction of the District’s consolidated forensics laboratory, and a $19.2 million payment for a program to place vulnerable individuals and families in permanent housing rather than shelters, “and then provides treatment for other challenges that may be at the root of the homelessness.”
Ward 5 D.C. Councilman Harry Thomas Jr. praised that funding, especially any help for projects in “the most needy neighborhoods” of his ward. Thomas, chairman of the parks and recreation committee, also lobbied for a large chunk of a $5 million federal grant “to support programs aimed at reconnecting disconnected youth.”
“If we give them enhanced opportunities,” Thomas said of District youth,” we stop them from getting into the system in the first place.”
The General Services Administration has been given hundreds of millions of dollars for specific D.C. area projects, including $100 million for Columbia Plaza, $15 million for Southeast Federal Center Remediation, $146 million for fixes to the White House and Eisenhower Executive Office Building and courtyard, $30.2 million to repair the New Executive Office Building and $137.9 million for the Food and Drug Administration Consolidation in White Oak.
Budget language also promises to “accelerate the opening of the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, Maryland and the new Fort Belvoir Army Community Hospital, Virginia.”
