Photo of the Day: November 27, 2009
Morning Roundup: Black Friday Edition
Car Pushed Into Anacostia River By Train
Devendra Banhart @ 9:30 Club
Hooray?
The Post is reporting that the D.C. Council endorsed legislation yesterday that would place electronic signs at the new baseball stadium displaying the amount of federal taxes paid by District residents while not having any voting rights. In theory, the signs would make the point to baseball fans that Distrist residents are not only not formally represented in Congress, they are also taxed to boot.
While we've long pushed for the council to take any measure possible to further highlight the city's longstanding lack of voting representation (the D.C. quarter, anyone?), we're pretty sure these signs won't actually be appearing in the stadium any time soon. In March, team owners shot down the idea as too political, also noting that the lease agreement they have with the city grants them total control over signage in the park. Sure, we have 611 million reasons why the signs should go up; but they have a legal document saying why they shouldn't.
We'd love to see council Chair Vincent Gray and Mayor Adrian Fenty head over to the Lerner family offices to try and talk them into allowing the signs to go up. Of course, Ted Lerner isn't likely to give the go-ahead on something as, ummmm, controversial as voting rights in a town whose history has long been characterized by not actually having them, so it may be worth considering where else in the area around the stadium such signs could be placed that would be similarly visible. The exit of the Navy Yard Metro station? M Street SE? South Capitol Street?
That failing, we'll propose that the city and the Lerners settle things the way everything should be settled from now — gun duel at high noon. Heck, the Supreme Court has granted us the right to have handguns, so are we going to sit idly by and not use them for productive purposes?
Picture snapped by johnkgroth
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this is what we get for giving a stadium to a bunch of suburbanites who build shopping malls.
then again, it gets suburbanites to come to the city and spend their dollars, so i'll call this a wash, ideologically.
I think the sign is pointless. Most people in the DC area know about the voting rights issue. The only way something like that has any effect is if it receives national attention.
If the lease gives the team owners "total control" over signage at the park, then their is nothing stopping them from putting up the tax sign.
DC's influence over the team isn't limited to the lease agreement. If they won't put up the sign the city can suspend all assistance with the parking, traffic, bus service, utilities, policing, advertising, etc. they do to promote the team. No handouts for those who oppose this city's most cherished political aspiration.
But in any case democracy for US citizens shouldn't be controversial or political. Especially when those weak excuses are coming from the beneficiaries of so much money from those same disenfranchised tax payers.
And why wasn't this sign specifically included in the lease agreement to begin with? DC OWNS the stadium. The team owners are merely tenants in a public property.
Does MLB have a say?....because if they do, this whole sign thing will go away real fast.
alewis -
The games are shown on national television. Hopefully the sign will end up on tv every so often. And yes people may know DC doesn't vote.
But I doubt anyone can say how much DC pays in taxes off the top of their head.
Minor point of clarification--the Constitution granted the right to possess firearms, the Supreme Court merely restored the right that DC wrongfully (and unconstitutionally) abrogated.
disenfranchised-
Total agree. If the sign gets on T.V., then yes, it could have some effect. But proposals to put the sign outside the stadium or near Metro are just silly.
And D.C. residents paid $18.1 billion in Federal taxes last year, more than 20 states. ;-)
So did the Council also endorse apple pie, motherhood, and kittens? Because that would be one bold and controversial piece of legislation.
They'd be better off just using up all those leftover "DC: It's a Capital City!" urinal cakes they spent that $9.2 million PR money on. I have yet to see one of those in a District building. Talk about begging for an audit!
The streets on capitol hill are still city property, right? Why not paint it in big letters right in the middle of the streets.
A big red "No Taxation Without Representation" painted on every street in view of every window in every House and Senate office building might do the trick.
The sign ain't gonna appear in the baseball stadium. Maybe it will appear on some other city-owned plot of land somewhere down there. But then look for the Secret Service to reject that proposal b/c of safety concerns.
The additional kicker? The sign at the Wilson Building will be located somewhere otuside the building, b/c they can't actually put it on the building itself. And I await the National Historic Preservation people to say that even that wouldn't be allowed b/c of historical views considerations.
All in all, the sign is a big waste of time and money.
@By
As StantonPark often reminds me, the federal government actually owns the street itself up to and including the underlying concrete.
The District owns the asphalt and the sidewalk.
But that hasn't stopped US Capitol Police from comandeering over all of that District asphalt (and District traffic signs) around the congressional buildings.
what's the policy on fans bringing politically oriented signs into the stadium themselves? couldn't the city just recruit a lot of people to wave posters that say taxation without representation? or wear shirts with the same slogan? The odds of that showing up on tv are higher than a giant sign outside the stadium.
What's to stop some enterprising activist from sneaking in and painting the slogan on the grass using bleach? I mean, apart from the armed guards?
"Never underestimate the power of shaving dirty words into the side of animals," as Grandpa Ben "Dover" Monkey used to say before they took him away to the home. He also used to say, "I walked into the jungle when I was seventeen and when I was twenty-one I walked out. And by god I was RICH!" And when I asked him how he did it, he cockpunched me and yelled, "Never fight fair with a stranger, boy. You'll never get out of the jungle that way." I miss him sometimes. And by "miss" I mean "pee on his grave."
Flapjack,
I saw one game this year where a person in the Presidents seats had an Obama sign, it was viewable on TV for about 1 sec, and the next shot of home plate security was there, the next shot after than she was being moved to a less viewable area.
gburdell: maybe when DC does get voting rights, we can try to overturn the opinion of prehistoric imbeciles such as yourself.
I like the idea of putting the sign somewhere visible to the TV audience, but there have only been about four nationally televised Nats games on Fox or ESPN since they moved to town. The District would be better off buying some advertising space at Fenway Park or Yankee Stadium, since those two teams are on national TV several times a week.
The sign is also cursed.
What will come first: DC Congressional Representation or Nat's World Series Win?
systemerror: a-ha! you're trying to trick us with that question! the obvious answer is both. congress will pass a law giving us representation only if and when the nats win the world series.
which means we're screwed.
I'm as big a fan of voting rights as anybody, but this is a cheap and tacky ploy designed primarily to make the City Council look like they are actually doing something.
How about a sign about the tens of millions in Federal benefits, including SSI, Food Stamps, etc that DC gets that the other US territories DO NOT GET.
Imagine a DC without those programs? Heck, imagine the neighborhood directly west of the stadium without those programs...
Still want to opt out of paying Federal taxes?
hillvada-
I actually checked this out. D.C. gets about 1/4 of it's budget for federally-mandated programs; this is in the middle of the pack. States like New Mexico get almost half of their state budget in the form of federal grants and funding. The money that the DC government receives that the states do not makes up a HUGE 0.5% of the city's total budget (Source: D.C. Budget). To say that the District somehow gets "tens of millions" in special federal funding that other states do not get is just flat out wrong.
I don't think anybody wants to opt out of paying taxes, we just want the same ability to decide what happens with that tax money as do all other Americans. And, if it's not asking too much, I'd also like the ability to decide what happens with my local tax money, without having some Congressman from Oklahoma telling me what I can do with my property taxes.
"What will come first: DC Congressional Representation or Nat's World Series Win?"
World Series win, without a doubt.
alewis-
My point was not that DC gets more than other states, but rather that it gets more, much more, tens of millions more, than US territories that do not pay Federal income taxes. In other words, the argument that DC would have it better if we didn't have to pay income tax, like Puerto Rico or Guam, couldn't be more wrong.
However, when comparing DC to states, you have to also realize that DC, unlike every other state, does not have to:
-operate a park service;
-operate a prosecutor's office;
-operate a prison system;
-operate a university system,
-operate a natural resources agency, and on an on...
So for that Congressman from Oklahoma, well his constituents are footing the bill to house DC inmates in Federal prisons, and hire National Park Service employees to maintain neighborhood parks in the city, and pay for the US Attorneys who prosecute felonies in DC, and pay part of the tuition for DC students to attend colleges in other states, and so on. So maybe, just maybe, it makes sense for him to have some say in how the city his constituents partly pay for, is run.
hillvada,
Thank you for your mind blowing analysis. I have now decided being taxed without representation is in fact a total bargain.
Maybe I can get a tax break for waving my freedom of speech or due process as well?
Got any thoughts on that?
I saw the CUTEST kids today in front of the White House, wearing "Young Suffragists" t-shirts and chanting "Give DC a Vote! Give DC a Vote!" I cheered them on while the tourists looked on in confusion.
hillvada,
I would gladly pay taxes for the court system (which is shitastic anyway) and related activities (a grand total of $270 million... source) and park areas (even though there are national parks all over the country that are operated at Federal expense).
As for law enforcement, there are also law enforcement agencies that operate all around the country. Or maybe we should tell New York City and Los Angeles that because they also have Federal law enforcement personnel helping protect those cities that they somehow are not entitled to vote for Congress or manage their own affairs?
What business is it of mine that the Federal government wants its own law enforcement agency for every piece of property it owns? I would be happy to pay for the MPD to take over security in areas if the Federal government wanted it that way, apparently they don't.
Also, the Federal government has nothing to do with D.C.'s "university system" (if that's what you can call UDC)... it's paid for by the DC city govt out of local tax money. Unless, for some strange reason you'd also like to make the point that if a college accepts federal funds somehow the city its located in gives up the right to vote?
Hillvada, you are incorrect on every front.
-The Department of Parks and Recreation manages (some of) DC's local parks. That many of our circle, square, and "pocket" parks are under federal control is itself a travesty that should be corrected (the feds should keep the mall and major national parks such Roosevelt Island or the C and O Canal, but we should have control over our local parks).
-DC does have its own prosecutors in the Office of the Attorney General. They share/split some authority with the US Attorney General for DC. I'd believe we should have more local control over prosecuting crime and our court system. Maybe if we had local prosecutors and judges rather than federal appointees, we would have stronger enforcement and greater sensitivity to local issues.
-We have a local university, UDC. It needs improvement and the District needs to strongly consider a community college system and expanding job training opportunities.
-We have a District Department of the Environment and DC Department of Corrections too, BTW.
In my opinion, the DC Council should spend less time on show and more on substance when it comes to Home Rule. It should strongly advocate for full control over local parks, prosecutors, and courts.