Vincent Gray Reminds Senate of D.C. Residents' Federal Taxes

While we wait for who knows how long for debate on the D.C. Voting Rights act to begin, D.C. Council Chair Vincent Gray has released a statement directed to the Senate while they consider S.160. Press release below:

On the eve of Senate’s cloture vote on the D.C. House Voting Rights Bill (S. 160), Council Chairman Vincent C. Gray today noted that the Council’s “Taxation without Representation Digital Message Board” shows that the residents of the District of Columbia have now paid more than a half-billion dollars in federal taxes, less than two months into 2009. Chairman Gray said the huge payment by taxpayers who lack full representation in the Congress of the United States dramatizes an injustice that the Senate can correct, beginning with Tuesday’s vote on whether to move the bill past cloture and pave the way for full consideration on the Senate floor. At noon today, the message board tally was more than $519 million. The counting began on January 1, 2009.

The Council unanimously passed a bill at the end of last year to erect the electronic message board outside the John A. Wilson Building, the seat of the District’s government, to set the stage for a visible calculator showing that D.C. residents pay more than $113 in federal taxes per second. A second digital board will be placed near the Washington Nationals Stadium.

“With every second, the citizens of the District of Columbia are denied a basic democratic right enjoyed by every other taxpaying American,” Gray said. “Filling this void is a long time coming. But the Senate can move our quest for full representation a huge step by overcoming any roadblocks that threaten to maintain the status quo that unfairly treats our citizens like second class citizens. I urge Senators in both parties to deliver on the long overdue debt owed to D.C. residents, and end taxation without representation, beginning with tomorrow’s vote.”

Chairman Gray will be in the Senate gallery when the vote is taken.