Photo by Phil Roeder.

Seeing as how congressional Republicans have tidied up the federal budget and put the country back on sound fiscal footing, it seems like they’re more than happy to lend their services to the District’s own local budget.

The House Subcommittee on Health Care, D.C., Census, and the National Archives has scheduled a hearing Thursday morning where it will explore the District’s 2012 budget, which was introduced by Mayor Vince Gray in early April and is slowly making its way through the D.C. Council. Gray and D.C. Council Chair Kwame Brown will be on hand to testify, as will D.C. CFO Natwar Gandhi and Alice Rivlin, a Brookings Institution scholar, former member of the D.C. Control Board and member of Gray’s transition team. Jim Dinegar, CEO of the D.C. Board of Trade, and Matt Fabian, Managing Director of Municipal Market Advisors, will also be on hand.

The hearing, titled “The District Of Columbia’s Fiscal Year 2012 Budget: Ensuring Fiscal Sustainability,” will be among the first on local affairs held by subcommittee chair Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC), a freshman legislator and Tea Party favorite. While Gowdy originally seemed open to working cooperatively with District officials, he recently co-signed a recent letter to Gray demanding information on how much local money had been spent on abortions before a recent budget rider again prohibited the city from using its own money to fund the services.

The hearing will provide some insight into how a self-avowed supporter of the Tea Party can balance the movement’s belief that local decisions should be made by local officials against the federal power he wields to impose his beliefs on the District, especially when the city does something he might disagree with. (One of Gowdy’s South Carolina colleagues succinctly summarized why Congress screws with D.C. as much as it does — simply cause it can.) Beyond abortion and other such social issues, it remains to be seen how Gowdy will treat Gray’s proposal for a number of tax increases. Last year, Gowdy signed a pledge to oppose any and all tax increases.

Additionally, that Gray and Brown are both testifying is noteworthy. The two have testified alongside each other before and disagreed (during a February hearing on school vouchers), so it’s likely that Brown won’t hide the fact that he’s looking to strip Gray’s income tax on the city’s top earners from the budget. That being said, both Brown and Gray were arrested on April 11 during an pro-autonomy protest, so they could well present a united front on allowing the Council to do its work on the budget without congressional interference. It remains to be seen where Dinegar, an opponent of any tax increases, will stand — will he try to appeal to Gowdy to bring the subcommittee down on the city for pondering hikes on parking garages, high-income earners and corporations that take advantage of the so-called combined reporting loophole?

Finally, it remains to be seen whether Gowdy pursue the investigation launched by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), the chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, into the scandals surrounding Gray.

D.C. voting rights activists have another protest on Capitol Hill planned for Wednesday afternoon, and news of the hearing will only likely inflame their passions. The protest, which would be the fifth since early April, will likely see new arrests, adding to the 55 people who have been detained demonstrating for D.C. voting rights and autonomy.