Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-01-12
Financial Equity for the District.

Financial Equity for the District.
The campaign for financial equity
for the District suffers apparently no
setback from the fact-flndings of the
Bureau of Efficiency.
So far as the national contribution is
concerned the bureau finds that merely
as an ordinary property-owning mu-
nicipal taxpayer the Nation should con-
tribute for purely municipal purposes
e7,440,939 annually.
To this should be added, the bureau
says, a sum representing the Nations
/. liability on account Of loss of tax reve-
niue due to great excess Of real property
exemptions, and there should be added
, also, the bureau says, another sum on
account of extraordinary expenditures
.occasioned by the fact that Washington
is the National Capital, including the
. cost of excess park acquisition and
maintenance.
If the Governments contribution Is
20 be a lump sum there is still another
equitable addition to be made, based
upon the fact that the Nation, though
only a fractional municipal taxpayer,
controls absolutely and exclusively the
raising and spending of all municipal
taxes. Financial obligation follows po-
litical or legislative power.
The national partner in the Capital
making partnership should not permit
itself or be permitted so to exercise Its
Exclusive taxing power as to make the
local taxpayers contribution more and
more and its own con tribution less and
less, suggesting an ultimate resulting
Condition In which the national mi
saority partner shall do all of the dectd-
ting and controlling and none of the
paying.
= The natural method of preventing
this fiagrantly unjust result is to cause
tile minority but controlling partner to
pay a fixed percentage of the total cap
ital expenditure, so that for every tax
dollar exacted from the local taxpayer
some payment will be made by the ma
stional partner Under the lump-sum
system on the contrary every additional
dollar wrung from the impotent tax
payers decreases the sum which must
be paid by the national contributor.
But if Congress is not yet ready to
return to obedience to substantive law
and to reinstate the wise and fair sys-
TEN of definite proportionate contribu-
ton, then the lump sum should be sub
stantially increased in accordance with
these facts and this reasoning, and as
definite a limitation should be placed
upon the amount of the local taxpayers
contribution as that upon the Nations
contribution. The local taxpayer needs
this limitation for his protection; the
national contributor with unlimited
power of control in his hands needs no
self-imposed limitation upon the amount
of his payment.
To put the bureaus figures Of COM
harrison between Washington and other
cities in tax rate and per capita tax
levy on fairer basis, there should be
subtracted that fraction Of the total
which represents State taxes, and that
Traction which represents interest and
= sinking fund payments on funded In
debtedness. The State tax means vot-
ing representation in the national and
. h state government, which right and
mower are of incalculable value; and it
means also the enjoyment by the State
taxpayers of millions of national grants,
counties and subventions. The Dis
Erict has no voting representation IN
any government and does not partici-
nate in any of the national subventions
to the States. Since the District en-
Joys no State benefits its municipal
taxpayers should not be compelled to
match State taxation.
.r The States and cities have large
funded indebtedness, which represents
In part permanent public improvements
s mich have been enjoyed, and in par'
extravaganza and in some cases graft
The District has not been permitted u
contract this kind Of indebtedness, ane
Il has not enjoyed the permanent public
improvements which this indebtedness:
represents. This item of expenditure
should be eliminated in a comparison
of current municipal expenditures b,
Washington and other American cities
The figures submitted by the bureau
must be carefully, thoughtfully and ex'
kaustively studied before their full
bearing upon the fiscal relations Of Ma
ton and District can be understood
But a first reading of the report dis
closes no facts and no reasoning which
when supplemented by the equitable
considerations that have been sug
gested, initiate against the contention
Of the District in its plea for fair pla.
In its fiscal affairs.