I don’t know if you guys noticed — it was late on Friday afternoon, after all — but the District is now reportedly staring down a $600 million budget deficit come fiscal year 2012. Huge, right? Obviously, it isn’t the right time for the city’s politicians to be lounging in the creature comforts of elected office; I mean, if you’re going to cut funding for social safety net programs, it doesn’t make very much sense to be driving around the city in Lincoln Navigators which cost nearly $2,000 per month to lease.

Alan Suderman has the local political scoop of the early afternoon, as he discovered that both Mayor Vince Gray and Council Chair Kwame Brown are utilizing city-funded transportation — luxury SUVs, which, if the vehicle’s manufacturer’s website is to be believed, come with an option for including rain-sensing wipers. Suderman reports that the vehicles, leased by the police department’s “executive protection unit,” cost $1,941 (Gray) and $1,963.28 (Brown) per month — and that the Department of Public Works didn’t put an order in for the vehicles until too close to Gray and Brown’s swearing-ins on January 2, which cost taxpayers another $1,600 in expedited shipping fees.