Virginians and Marylanders often argue that one of the many things stopping them from moving into the District is the taxes. Heck, even those of us who are District residents have complained of the city’s historically high taxes. But are all those complaints just as much a myth as the idea that Washington was once a swamp? It looks like it. By way of the Post and D.C. Metblogs, we find that the D.C….

Ed Lazere, the executive director of the D.C. Fiscal Policy Institute, has an interesting piece in the current Hill Rag analyzing the Mayor’s budget proposal for arts funding in 2007. Noticing large amounts of cash in the budget set aside for repairs and expansion of a handful of private cultural institutions — notably $8 million to repair the roof at the Corcoran Gallery of Art and an additional $5 million for Arena Stage’s expansion —…

Hell, 77 comments and counting on our last post on the commuter tax, and along comes more news to fuel the debate. Today the D.C. Appleseed Center for Law and Justice, one of the primary litigants on the commuter tax issue, announced it would appeal a recent decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia that upheld the longstanding ban on the imposition of the tax to the U.S. Supreme Court….

You have to give it to the Washington Times — at least their headlines are amusing. The much-loved newspaper today reports on six Montgomery County residents who were detained for transporting illegal immigrants into the area for work as prostitutes, titling the story, “Four in family among six held in alien sex ring.” Alien sex ring? Well, yes, “alien” is the technical term for a non-American, but wouldn’t “immigrant” have sufficed? Cropp Proposes New Funding…

Smoking real estate market. Budget surpluses. New baseball stadium. Revitalized neighborhoods. Really makes the District sound idyllic, doesn’t it? Maybe not. A study released by the D.C. Fiscal Policy Institute yesterday may well throw some cold water on the city’s celebration of its good fortune, though. According to the study, which analyzed census data to determine economic changes in District neighborhoods from 1990 to 2000, income inequality in the city continues to grow, with top…

Facing a growing shortage of affordable housing in the District, members of the D.C. City Council yesterday introduced legislation that would strengthen existing rent control laws, reports The Common Denominator. Eleven members of the council joined sponsor Jim Graham (D-Ward 1) in endorsing the legislation, which would limit increases on rent for certain properties to 10 percent per year and restrict the increase of rent on individual units in rent-controlled buildings. The legislation would amend…

This one of those pictures that just makes you stop, makes you wonder, makes you want to ask, “Is that for real?” While we are not discounting the possibility that Council-member Adrian Fenty (D-Ward 4) may be the favored candidate in the much sought after 8-15 age-group, we are guessing that someone’s parents are taking next year’s mayoral race just a step too far. Hopefully she didn’t run into the hyper-active nine-year-old with the…

Economically ruinous scheme or social justice imperative? Well, tonight you’ll at least hear the latter argument over whether or not the District needs a living wage. D.C. for Democracy is hosting a meeting tonight at which three speakers — MacKenzie Baris of D.C. Jobs With Justice, Ed Lazere of the D.C. Fiscal Policy Institute, and several students from the Georgetown University Living Wage Campaign — will discuss legislation currently before the D.C. City Council mandating…

In a city where property values have risen more than 14 percent over the last year, various District officials and activists have expressed concern over the availability of affordable housing. The D.C. Fiscal Policy Institute noted in a recent report that the shortage of affordable housing widened from 1990 to 2003 due to a 90 percent cut in funding for affordable housing over the same years, thus leading to an increase of the percentage of…

Community groups and “several existing and newly elected council members” are planning a rally on the steps of the Wilson Building tomorrow at 9:30 a.m. to protest “spending public funds for a $440 million baseball stadium.” (Via the Progressive Review) The protest is organized by the D.C. Fiscal Policy Institute, a project of the liberal think tank the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, and not related to the website noDCtaxesforbaseball.org….