The nation’s capital is at a critical juncture: Crime is up. Homelessness is up. Housing affordability has worsened. Downtown is comatose as office workers often stay home. Plus, deep inequalities remain, especially between largely White neighborhoods and largely Black ones. Even with nearly $20 billion for fiscal year 2024, the city’s budget, on which the District Council will vote Tuesday, requires city lawmakers to balance these competing interests — and ignore those that are less compelling.
Council Chairman Phil Mendelson this month asked council members to list their top three priorities. A basic consensus emerged: Address crime, housing and downtown while ensuring schools are adequately funded. We agree. If the city doesn’t get the essentials right, it will backslide. It’s telling that council members Trayon White Sr. (D-Ward 8) and Anita Bonds (D-At Large) each described city streets as “anarchy.”
Follow Editorial Board's opinions
As the final dollars are allocated, something also has to go. The obvious choice is to abandon free busing. There’s no revenue for it. The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority board has asked the city not to do it now. Raiding the capital budget to fund this would be a short-term gimmick that robs the city of critical dollars for much needed infrastructure improvements.
The more urgent need for low-income residents is affordable housing. That people are living in tents because they can’t afford anything else is a problem all over the nation, including in D.C. City rents initially fell during the pandemic, but then they shot up and remain high. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) proposed drastic cuts to the Emergency Rental Assistance Program and legal aid to help people facing eviction. The council is right to bump up those funds again. That task got easier thanks to the federal government awarding D.C. an additional influx of $33 million for rental assistance.
Skip to end of carousel
End of carousel- The Biden administration releases a review on the Colorado River.
- The misery of Belarus’s political prisoners should not be ignored.
- Biden has a new border plan.
- The United States should keep the pressure on Nicaragua.
- America’s fight against inflation isn’t over.
- The Taliban has doubled down on the repression of women.
The Biden administration released an environmental impact statement outlining options for cutting use of the Colorado River. Water allocations could prioritize farmers in California based on centuries-old water rights, or involve proportional cuts to Arizona, California and Nevada. The review also included the costs of the status quo.
The administration will likely decide on a course of action by August. As we outlined in an editorial in February, a voluntary agreement between the states is the best option — and a dramatic reimagining of water use is needed thereafter.
Ihar Losik, one of hundreds of young people unjustly jailed in Belarus for opposing Alexander Lukashenko’s dictatorship, attempted suicide but was saved and sent to a prison medical unit, according to the human rights group Viasna. Losik, 30, a blogger who led a popular Telegram channel, was arrested in 2020 and is serving a 15-year prison term on charges of “organizing riots” and “incitement to hatred.” His wife is also a political prisoner. Read more about their struggle — and those of other political prisoners — in a recent editorial.
The Department of Homeland Security has provided details of a plan to prevent a migrant surge along the southern border. The administration would presumptively deny asylum to migrants who failed to seek it in a third country en route — unless they face “an extreme and imminent threat” of rape, kidnapping, torture or murder. Critics allege that this is akin to an illegal Trump-era policy. In fact, President Biden is acting lawfully in response to what was fast becoming an unmanageable flow at the border. Read our most recent editorial on the U.S. asylum system.
Some 222 Nicaraguan political prisoners left that Central American country for the United States in February. President Daniel Ortega released and sent them into exile in a single motion. Nevertheless, it appears that Mr. Ortega let them go under pressure from economic sanctions the United States imposed on his regime when he launched a wave of repression in 2018. The Biden administration should keep the pressure on. Read recent editorials about the situation in Nicaragua.
Inflation remains stubbornly high at 6.4 percent in January. The Federal Reserve’s job is not done in this fight. More interest rate hikes are needed. Read a recent editorial about inflation and the Fed.
Afghanistan’s rulers had promised that barring women from universities was only temporary. But private universities got a letter on Jan. 28 warning them that women are prohibited from taking university entrance examinations. Afghanistan has 140 private universities across 24 provinces, with around 200,000 students. Out of those, some 60,000 to 70,000 are women, the AP reports. Read a recent editorial on women’s rights in Afghanistan.
1/7
On crime, there have been alarming jumps in motor vehicle theft and sexual abuse. The city needs an “all of the above” strategy with more officers, more cameras, more enforcement, and more mental health treatment. Given the surge in young people committing crimes, it also makes sense to keep resource officers in schools.
Meanwhile, it’s encouraging to see many council members recognize the need to make game-changing investment in downtown. Mr. Mendelson said recently, “Revitalizing downtown is something that has to happen in the next year or two.” He’s half right. Downtown needs both short- and long-term revival strategies. That means money for festivals and events, but it also means incentives for transforming office buildings into apartments, schools and other uses. This would not be a giveaway to developers but an acknowledgment that converting outdated offices is expensive and seed money is needed, especially for early risk takers. The sooner builders get moving, the better for all. Tax revenue from downtown is critical to the D.C. budget.
The K Street Transitway, a long-planned facelift of one of Washington’s iconic avenues, should also be part of the downtown turnaround. (See our editorial here.) It needs an overhaul to make it safer and easier for public transit and increased residential use. Substantial funding should be in the next fiscal year’s budget to get it going.
If there is a theme for D.C. in fiscal 2024, it should be “a city rebounding.” The budget needs to reflect that.