Opinion:
D.C.’s financial management is like water down the drain
By Greg Boyd
An old saying among gamblers is that if you don’t know who the weakest player at the table is then it’s probably you.
If we had listened solely to the Mayor and the D.C. Council, the citizens of D.C. would’ve believed that they had built a fortress-like balance sheet, impenetrable to the winds of financial misfortune.
The truth is something quite different, for we have been gliding on easy money updrafts buoyed by ever-expanding property values and sales tax increases that have allowed our leaders to spend us into oblivion.
I wrote about this in 2017 and my thoughts were echoed by D.C. Auditor Kathy Patterson last spring. One of the 124 people toiling in the office of Mayor Muriel Bowser responded to Patterson by saying: “The comments by the Council’s auditors and $2 will get you a ride on the Metrobus.”
Now that Congress has given D.C. the shaft, there could be consequences for such arrogance. Our capital budget expenditures for 2020 through 2025 were slated to be funded by the issuance of an additional $4B in bonds—bonds that are secured by your property, income and sales taxes and on dreams of perpetual growth.
Currently, you the taxpayers, not our politicians, are responsible for almost $8B in debt that costs almost $1B per year to service.
People mistakenly believe that a “Balanced Budget” means no debt. That’s not true. The true cost may be much more, as the amount listed on the budget is $1.5B for “Financing and Other.”
In the past, we’ve seen heinous wastes of money on school modernization by over $1B and property leases, streetcars, tax abatements, a study of a gondola and that nebulous entity, Events D.C.
Next year’s budget includes expenditures for $240M for streetscapes (re: cash for our developer friends) and $188M for that rolling turd on rails, the streetcar. Adding a bus lane to K Street? $122M.
By comparison, our Mother Teresa-like government has allocated $5M for “Child Care Assistance.” Increasing the council to 50 members and statehood? Probably not.
As of this moment there’s no word on the gondola, but I’m personally holding on to hope.
Now that our children are forced to homeschool it was revealed that 30% have no access to the internet. A functioning hospital for Wards 7 and 8? It was life-threatening before, but now it has become a death sentence. Fresh food in the neighborhoods to the east of the Anacostia River? Enjoy the arena.
Maybe Brianne Nadeau is going to have to rethink that “Soda Tax.”
There’s only so much our elected leaders can blame on their congressional overlords. At some point the same people that passed $1B in unfunded legislation will have to take a look at what a charade the D.C. government has become. Perhaps they’ll pass some “Ceremonial Legislation” and name an alley after themselves.
One can only pray that the Control Board built a firewall between D.C. legislators and the billions of dollars in the overfunded pension plan.
Nationwide, D.C. residents are the deepest indebted in regard to student loans and mortgage debt, so any possible solution via more taxes (Trickle Up?) would be difficult to implement. Interested in hanging with solvent folks? Head to West Virginia, a state with the lowest consumer debt in the nation and a billionaire, Jim Justice, for a governor.
Sadly though, a budgeting process once described by At-Large Councilmember Anita Bonds as a “candy shop” has come to a close. The halcyon years that lasted from 2007 to 2020 have come to an end. It didn’t have to end this way but unfortunately politicians and hedge fund managers operate with “OPM”—Other People’s Money—and largely behave the same way.
As Kenny Rogers sang: “You’ve gotta know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em.” It didn’t take long to call the District’s bluff.
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“Beltway” Greg Boyd is a longtime Ward 1 resident and former stockbroker who served in the U.S. Marines and as a teacher with D.C. Public Schools.
