D.C. Council Member Marion Barry, D-Ward 8, has exercised his legendary ability to grab headlines by proposing that the city consider erecting toll booths on all major highways heading into town. The former mayor doesn’t think commuters from Maryland and Virginia are paying their fair share for the privilege of working here. What a curious idea coming from somebody who didn’t get around to paying his District and federal taxes for six years, and was just sentenced in March to three years of supervised probation.
Barry knew his toll booth legislation, co-sponsored by council members Harry Thomas Jr., D-Ward 5, and Kwame Brown, D-at large, was provocative. Before throwing this stink bomb, the trio should have been a little more circumspect about the timing. Congress has consistently refused to allow the District to impose a commuter tax on the 480,000 workers coming from the suburbs, many of them federal employees. Trying to impose a backdoor commuter tax when Congress is on the verge of granting D.C. a vote in the House of Representatives is not a smart tactical move.
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It’s also unfair. Mayor Adrian Fenty’s fiscal 2008 budget request exceeds $9.7 billion — for a city of slightly more than a half-million residents. Unlike other jurisdictions, much of the city’s revenue comes from the federal government in the form of an annual subsidy. Unlike Barry himself, taxpayers in Virginia and Maryland already pay for D.C. government.
However, the toll booth idea may serve to distract city residents from a $30 million backdoor tax hike discreetly contained in Fenty’s new budget. Located in the Budget Act B17-148 on Page 29, Subtitle H, under “Residential Real Property Tax Deduction,” this provision lowers homeowners’ tax rate as assessments rise, and limits property tax increases to 10 percent a year. The Council’s Finance Committee is expected to vote on repealing this homeowner protection today. If the provision goes, property taxes will shoot up next year.
“D.C. is an expensive city already and policies such as these only further transform our middle class into the working poor,” D.C. Republican Committee Vice Chairman Tony Williams told The Examiner. The solution is less spending, not soaking city residents and commuters alike. Has Fenty already forgotten his promise not to raise taxes?
