D.C. Statehood = D.C. Bankruptcy, 3589

Good morning, I’m still reporting on the coup.
The House increased its irrelevancy with its straight party-line vote to make the District of Columbia a state.
This is said to be about representation, but it’s really a power grab which is the reason for the party-line vote. The Democrats in the House see this as a way to gain two more Democratic Senators. Joe Biden received 92 percent of the vote in DC in the 2020 election, a good indication of just how Democrat the city is.
But there is a long list of problems with making DC a state. First and foremost, it is unconstitutional twice. Establishing a federal district is in the Constitution Article 1 Section 8. Plus there is the 23rd Amendment giving the people in DC the right to choose electors to vote for the president.
Not all the Democratic Senators are in favor of making DC a state and it wouldn’t come close to the 60 votes needed for a regular bill to come to the floor of the Senate for a vote.
It’s a really dumb idea and off the record and behind locked doors, some of the folks in the DC city government have been adamantly opposed in the past.
Why? DC gets billions of dollars from the federal government that no other city or state receives. If DC were to become a state, it would have to stand in line with all of the other states begging for federal money. With only one representative in the House, DC wouldn’t have a lot of clout. Now the federal government pays for the courts and prison system that are outrageously expensive and that would go away along with many of the other special allocations that DC receives.
For Washington to have anywhere near the budget it has today, the tax rate would be so high that even the wealthy folks who live there now would find it financially beneficial to move across the state line into Maryland or Virginia, which would mean Washington would have even fewer residents who pay taxes and a higher percentage of residents who live on the government dole.
It’s a common practice regardless of race for people who reach a middleclass income to flee the city to either Virginia or Maryland and endure a long commute to live somewhere they can afford a house and don’t have to deal with the current high taxes and high crime of DC.
If DC were to become a state that outflow would be even faster.
But that isn’t the real issue which is why the Democrats in Congress don’t really care what their Democratic cohorts in DC city government are telling them behind closed doors.
The real issue is political power.
And surprisingly the Democrats in Congress have not denied that the real issue is getting two more Democratic Senators.
The Democrats act like if the bill is passed that DC will become a state immediately and two Democrats will be added to the Senate ending the 50-50 split next month.
But has anything on Capitol Hill ever happened that fast?
And Democrats have a huge problem in their own ranks, one is West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin who with the 50-50 Senate split is the most powerful man in the Senate. The Democrats can’t pass anything without Manchin’s support and for that matter neither can the Republicans because he is one Democrat they might be able to peel off from the pack.
Manchin is not going to give up that position of power for nothing. Another problem the Democrats have is that there are actually some Democrats in the Senate who realize what a huge disaster it would be for the country, if the nation’s capital was part of a state.
Imagine if DC were a state and didn’t get what it wanted it could close all the bridges for repair at the same time making a trip out of the city take hours. It could block the streets around the Capitol for security and make it difficult for anyone to enter or leave.
Shoot, it could cut the water off to the Capitol if it wanted. The state of DC would have an enormous amount of power over Congress that might not be exercised for a while, but when DC is facing bankruptcy you can bet they would pull out all the stops.
This is no more or less than a power grab by the House Democrats which if the system works like it should, will die a quiet death in the place that House bills go to die, the US Senate.
And that way, the coupsters can continue to beat the race-dividing war drums of their segregationist past – old white men won’t give the black folks the vote. This sort of maximal hypocrisy can only exist among those who were not taught American history in high school.
I’m still reporting from just outside the citadel of world freedom. Good Day.