As I contemplated the prospect of writing a fat check to the U.S. Treasury on Thursday, the injustice of my paying federal taxes yet not having a vote in Congress once again burned inside me.
We half million residents of the District of Columbia fork over millions of dollars in taxes every year to fund the federal government. What do we get for our hard-earned cash? One nonvoting delegate. Our current representative, Eleanor Holmes Norton, can vote in committee but not on the House floor. We are essentially powerless voyeurs in the great game of national politics.
Makes me wanna march around with a placard! Demonstrate on the streets of the nation’s capital! Demand justice and representation for the little man!
“TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION” my license plate reads. Is anyone paying attention?
Then it hit me. On this tax day, right now in the nation’s capital, throngs of citizens who share my gripes about taxation and injustice are gathering.
They are linking arms and hearing rousing speeches on Freedom Plaza.
I decided to take it on down to Pennsylvania Avenue and see if I could find common ground with the Tea Party members. Why not? Driving through the National Mall on the beauteous afternoon, I passed a few men carrying “Impeach Obama” signs. Coming from a town that voted for Obama 9-1 and is unflinchingly liberal, might I be on a fool’s errand?
I approached a lovely couple of Tea Party members and asked if it was fair that District residents pay federal taxes yet have no representatives.
“If they pay taxes like everyone else they ought to have representation,” said Ray Pander.
“We talked to a guy on Metro this morning about it,” his wife, Paula, said. “I don’t blame any of you for being angry.”
Aha! A common kernel of anger.
“Like all of us,” Ray said, “we pay taxes but feel we don’t have a say.”
Amen to that.
Ray and Paula Pander drove in from Ohio. They brought their children and grand kids in for the last Tea Party gathering. They run a trucking company. “Give Me Liberty, Not Debt,” his button said.
Would they be in favor of statehood for D.C.?
“Whatever it would take for you to get a vote,” Paula said. “Why has D.C. waited so long?”
Politics, I said. Next week a bill is coming before Congress that would at least give D.C. full voting rights on the House floor. But given the rider that would wipe out our gun control laws, it might not make it.
Might other Tea Party members might embrace D.C.’s cause for a vote in Congress?
“Absolutely,” Paula said. “It’s about being free.”
“Why would anyone be against it now?” Ray asked.
“Every law should be for the people,” Paula said. “If it would give people a say-so in their government, anybody in the Tea Party would be for it.”
Politics make strange bedfellows, they say. Taxes might make even stranger ones. I say we join forces.
E-mail Harry Jaffe at [email protected].
