Tax Free DC?

Via John J. Miller, one alternative to congressional representation or retrocession for DC:

End Federal Taxation: Given its exclusive power over the District, Congress could abolish federal income taxes on District residents, providing a powerful solution to the city's "taxation without representation" complaint. This is a reasonable compromise and fully within Congress's powers. Other non-voting territories, like Puerto Rico, do not pay federal income taxes for similar reasons.

I bet DC residents would take it. And as Miller remarks, it'd do big things for local property values. Of course, do this and next thing you know people around the country are clamoring for the right to give up their vote in exchange for not paying income taxes. Maybe some of the blogosphere's libertarians can start organizing around that proposal.

Photo by Flickr user Clone of Snake used under a Creative Commons license

Comments

Since I don't think there is any chance DC will get a vote in congress any time soon, I'll take the tax break.

Posted by dantonj | September 20, 2007 1:33 PM

This is a reasonable compromise and fully within Congress's powers.

I would be very surprised if DC isn't a huge sink (rather than a source) for federal money. That makes it a less than reasonable compromise, I think.

Posted by RSA | September 20, 2007 1:35 PM

RSA,

I don't quite understand your argument. Abolishing federal income tax in the District would not neccessarily mean the end of federal funding of DC, no? IIRC, then a big chunk of Puerto Rico's budget is provided by the federal government.

Posted by Patrick | September 20, 2007 1:45 PM

I'd move to DC if I didn't have to pay taxes:)

Posted by Dave | September 20, 2007 1:45 PM

I presume this is tongue in cheek and that I don't have to criticize the extreme stupidity of this proposal. I will simply point in the general direction of "public goods" and leave it at that.

Posted by Marshall | September 20, 2007 1:49 PM

And then every single corporation in the US will call DC and no more corporate income taxes!

Posted by Rob | September 20, 2007 1:50 PM

I would gladly give up my right to vote in exchange for paying no federal taxes. What's the use in democracy if you don't have enough money to buy that second plasma TV?

Posted by Naveen | September 20, 2007 1:52 PM

Do you know what the political uproar from the rest of the country over Washington voting itself a tax cut while no one else gets anything?

Posted by Nicholas Beaudrot | September 20, 2007 1:53 PM

Marshall,

why is the proposal extremely stupid? Just because it has the chance of the hell freezing over?

I, for one, find the idea of Washingtoneans not paying federal income tax not nuttier than the notion of Washingtoneans having no representation in the body making their laws.

Posted by Patrick | September 20, 2007 1:57 PM

RSA: You're right, we do receive a lot of money from the federal government. But the situation is so complicated that it's impossible to untangle: the federal government sits on a lot of prime taxable real estate, the DC government is required to provide various services for the feds (e.g. security at protests, police accompaniment for motorcades), much of the working population can and does commute from other states to whom they pay taxes, etc. etc. etc.

DC is in a unique situation. It doesn't make much sense to compare how much money it gets to other areas.

Posted by Tom | September 20, 2007 2:03 PM

I thought the Kazan metro (5 stations, pretty mosaics) was underused when I saw it. but the photo suggests Washington's is an even bigger white elephant.

Posted by James Wimberley | September 20, 2007 2:04 PM

James, the Metro handles about 750,000 trips per day, thank you.

Matt, this is really not a good idea. But you know that, right?

Posted by ryan | September 20, 2007 2:13 PM

Very bad deal for DC. It gets$ 6.64 in expenditures for every dollar sent in. Alaska is 2d with $1.87. On the other hand, if the residents at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. are any indication, they may be too stupid to see a good deal when they get one.

Posted by Peter Driscoll | September 20, 2007 2:15 PM

I don't think that 700,000 riders on an average weekday makes the Washington Metro a "white elephant".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Metro

Posted by Patrick | September 20, 2007 2:15 PM

Nicholas, aren't congresscritters all residents of a non-DC local? thats sort of the point of this discusion.

Posted by yoyo | September 20, 2007 2:16 PM

James, the Metro handles about 750,000 trips per day, thank you.

Yes, Metro is many things, but it is not underused.

Posted by Gabriel | September 20, 2007 2:16 PM

Since we're in fantasy land, why not go in the opposite direction, and get rid of D.C.'s representative democracy at the local level? What has that gotten you, besides corrupt embarrassments like Marion Barry? Replace it with a Singaporean-style, authoritarian capitalist administration. You could still pay taxes (that is, those of you who are net tax payers now), but you'd get a competent, effective city government in return.

The primary point of taxes, after all, is to fund government services (and of course transfer payments); paying taxes doesn't buy you the right to representation, anymore than legally not paying taxes denies you that right. When Jon Corzine was commuting to New York City from NJ to work at Goldman Sachs, he paid millions in NYC and NY State taxes; he didn't have the right to vote in New York State or NYC. At the same time, New York City was full of hundreds of thousands of welfare recipients who paid no taxes and had the right to vote there.

Posted by Fred | September 20, 2007 2:16 PM

Do you know what the political uproar from the rest of the country over Washington voting itself a tax cut while no one else gets anything?

Washington cannot vote itself such a cut. It has no Senators, and no Representatives.

Which I believe is the point at issue.

Posted by Davis X. Machina | September 20, 2007 2:17 PM

Do you know what the political uproar from the rest of the country over Washington voting itself a tax cut while no one else gets anything?

Washington cannot vote itself such a cut. It has no Senators, and no Representatives.

Which I believe is the point at issue.

Posted by Davis X. Machina | September 20, 2007 2:18 PM

"Matt, this is really not a good idea. But you know that, right?"

Why not? If DC is going to be treated like a territory, why shouldn't it be taxed like a territory?

No taxation without representation. If we are going to be refused representation, then do away with our taxes.

Posted by dantonj | September 20, 2007 2:18 PM

I was a bit too terse in my comment about DC getting lots of federal funding. I have two thoughts. First, given Tom's observations, whenever public services subsidized by federal money are reduced in DC, and people object, DC politicians will have a ready response: You don't pay even federal taxes, so you can't complain. Second, given what I think is a relatively ingrained American view about everyone pulling his or her own weight, DC residents would quickly come to be seen as freeloaders, and I don't think that would be a good thing.

I don't know if these are reasonable objections; they just came to mind.

Posted by RSA | September 20, 2007 2:18 PM

Washington cannot vote itself such a cut. It has no Senators, and no Representatives.

Which I believe is the point at issue.

Right. Now maybe if you DC guys could find yourselves some crates of tea to dump in a harbor . . .

Posted by UN Plaza | September 20, 2007 2:21 PM

@ dantonj:

Because, One, it's completely unrealistic. Two, most of us would prefer representation to no taxes. And that's because, Three, if you eliminated federal taxes in the District, the vast majority of current residents would be priced out of the local market within just a few years.

Posted by ryan | September 20, 2007 2:26 PM

Peter Driscoll: While you're correct that $6.67 spent per $1.00 paid is a great return, you seem to be missing that under this proposal the expenditures stay the same and it's just the $1.00 paid that goes away, making it an undefinably better return.

Posted by washerdreyer | September 20, 2007 2:30 PM

"The primary point of taxes, after all, is to fund government services (and of course transfer payments); paying taxes doesn't buy you the right to representation"

Funny, wasn't the opposite idea the very point of the war of independence?

"why not go in the opposite direction, and get rid of D.C.'s representative democracy at the local level? What has that gotten you, besides corrupt embarrassments like Marion Barry?"

Yes, whites from Montana and Utah think that those ingrateful negroes haven't properly used the privileges they were granted so graciously, so no voting rights for them if they don't prove being worthy!

"Replace it with a Singaporean-style, authoritarian capitalist administration. You could still pay taxes (that is, those of you who are net tax payers now), but you'd get a competent, effective city government in return."

Yeah, and if a majority of Americans dare to vote for the Democrats a few times in a row, they should beware. There are alternatives to democracy, after all.

Posted by Patrick | September 20, 2007 2:30 PM

This isn't a new idea. The phrase "Taxation Without Representation" was added to the DC license plate in 2000. DC only got "home rule" and the right to elect a mayor and city council in 1973.

Posted by Kitten | September 20, 2007 2:40 PM

How about we stop the tax paying stuff long enough to make the city rich and white. Then we give them statehood.

Posted by Matthew | September 20, 2007 2:41 PM

Cool. Just give me the flip side, and I'll die happy. (Non-taxpayers can be forbidden from voting.)

Posted by SamChevre | September 20, 2007 2:42 PM

How about offering that deal to the states with only 1 congresscritter (e.g., the big square states out West) ?

Most of the land in those states is owned by the federal government, those states are also net tax recipients and they won't disproportionately impact legislation !

Another solution for giving a vote to DC residents would be to limit the District to the several blocks surrounding the Mall (Capitol Hill, the White House, Supreme Court and agency buildings) where there are no residents. The remainder can be given back to Maryland !

Posted by H-Bob | September 20, 2007 2:44 PM

The main problem with this idea is that D.C. would become a mecca for anti-tax nutsos. They'd move there in droves if they could find work somewhere nearby. All those anti-tax nuts near the workings of the Federal government might have some influence on policy matters.

OTOH - it would bleed some of the nuts away from other states, which might lead us to be able to elect more responsible leaders who understand economics and know that the answer to every question isn't necessarily "cut taxes!" I'm not sure whether the pros outweigh the cons...

Posted by NonyNony | September 20, 2007 2:47 PM

So, residents of 50 states pay federal income taxes and have full federal representation.

Residents of Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the United States Virgin Islands do not pay federal income taxes and do not have full federal representation.

Residents of the District of Columbia pay federal income taxes and do not have full federal representation.

The problem isn't that District residents are second-class citizens. They're third-class, in steerage if you will.

Posted by Aaron | September 20, 2007 2:50 PM

The anti-DC comments always seem to contain a hint (at least) of racism. We're just not fit for self-guvvamint here.

Well, Barry's not the mayor anymore (although God knows he did enough damage). Our last mayor, Anthony Williams, did a pretty nice job with the city's finances and improved a great many of the basic services offered by the DC government. Our new mayor is a promising young guy who is tackling the schools issue here with a great deal of verve. We have our problems, but the city is vibrant, runs a surplus, and is actually a pretty nice place to live.

Posted by Klein's Tiny Left Nut | September 20, 2007 2:52 PM

@ryan

"Because, One, it's completely unrealistic."

Maybe. But, I say make the proposal anyway. I believe it will jump-start the discussion about DC's lack of representation.

Sometimes the value of a proposal like this is in its ability to get the discussion going and not in it actually getting enacted.

Posted by dantonj | September 20, 2007 2:52 PM

"The primary point of taxes, after all, is to fund government services (and of course transfer payments); paying taxes doesn't buy you the right to representation"

Funny, wasn't the opposite idea the very point of the war of independence?

You may have noticed some changes around here since then, no? Today, the political strategy of Democrats (and Republicans, if Ramesh Ponnuru has his way) is to win the votes of those who pay no net federal income taxes by promising them goodies paid for by those who do.

If a similar system were in place in the 18th Century -- i.e., if the British progressively taxed American colonists and spent the bulk of that money on transfer payments to bottom 80% of American colonists, instead of levying regressive taxes and spending that in England -- it's hard to imagine there would have been so much revolutionary fervor.

Posted by Fred | September 20, 2007 2:59 PM

I suspect much of the taxpayer savings would be offset by an increase in local taxes. Not because the federal tax exemption would cost the District government anything, but because local governments can always use revenues and, hey, our citizens just got a whole bunch more disposable income.

Posted by cminus | September 20, 2007 3:04 PM

"The anti-DC comments always seem to contain a hint (at least) of racism. We're just not fit for self-guvvamint here."

This from the guy who pays through the nose to keep his kids out of D.C. public schools.

"We have our problems, but the city is vibrant..."

What does "vibrant" mean? A surfeit of check-cashing places, storefront churches, and liquor stores with steel shutters -- the economic core one finds in many urban areas with large concentrations of low income African Americans?

Posted by Fred | September 20, 2007 3:10 PM

What does "vibrant" mean? A surfeit of check-cashing places, storefront churches, and liquor stores with steel shutters -- the economic core one finds in many urban areas with large concentrations of low income African Americans?

A proud 150-year tradition is brought low by Yglesias' unwillingness to edit his fucking comments to delete racist trash. It's sad.

Posted by Gabriel | September 20, 2007 3:15 PM

it'd do big things for local property values.

As well as for property taxes.

But I think I'd take the trade off.

Posted by SoCalJustice | September 20, 2007 3:16 PM

I could be wrong (I'm not an American, so my lessons on American history weren't that expansive), but IIRC the complaint of the colonists was not that the taxes raised in America were spent exclusively in Britain (the British claimed, not without reason, that the money was needed to serve the huge dept the British accumulated to fund the French and Indian wars the purpose of which was to defend the colonies).

Besides, I don't think that 20% of Americans pay income tax while 80% can live on Uncle Sam's dime and the 20% do not profit from anything the Government does. The system may be progressive, but it's not t h a t progressive. Sorry if the said tale of the opressed and overtaxed billionaires doesn't move me to tears.

Posted by Patrick | September 20, 2007 3:17 PM

Jesus, Fred, are you trying to illustrate my point by providing an example.

The city is vibrant -- i.e. loaded with life, restaraunts, bars, night spots, people out on the town, going to concerts, sporting events, plays and movies. There have been tower cranes swinging everywhere for the last several years building residential and commercial buildings all over the place, inclduing areas that were once rather tough.

And I don't pay for private school to keep my child away from Afircan Americans sweetheart. Stop projecting.

Posted by Klein's Tiny Left Nut | September 20, 2007 3:18 PM

I could be wrong (I'm not an American, so my lessons on American history weren't that expansive), but IIRC the complaint of the colonists was not that the taxes raised in America were spent exclusively in Britain (the British claimed, not without reason, that the money was needed to serve the huge dept the British accumulated to fund the French and Indian wars the purpose of which was to defend the colonies).

Besides, I don't think that 20% of Americans pay income tax while 80% can live on Uncle Sam's dime and the 20% do not profit from anything the Government does. The system may be progressive, but it's not t h a t progressive (remember payroll taxes, which are regressive?). Sorry if the sad tale of the opressed and overtaxed billionaires doesn't move me to tears.

Posted by Patrick | September 20, 2007 3:19 PM

Ironically, this is the deal the Chimperor and his party have offered the entire American voting public. Although you still have to pay taxes.

Posted by Baldrick | September 20, 2007 3:36 PM

There's an unhinged type who posts a lot on Douthat's blog - let's call him Teve Tailer - who insists that D.C.'s residents already are a huge drain on the taxpayers out in Real 'Murica.

Posted by Woody Bombay | September 20, 2007 3:44 PM

Three points:

1. Fred is an utter piece of shit. I don't like to refer to him but the racist cant is truly disgusting.

2. The main problem with this idea is that D.C. would become a mecca for anti-tax nutsos. Too late. They're all in Congress appealing to POS like Fred.

3. t's just the $1.00 paid that goes away, making it an undefinably better return. I'm sorry. I didn't focus on point 2. Racist POS in Congress are going to stop collecting taxes from DC and keep spending money? Are you Rip Van Winkle? The whole idea is to take money from poor people and give it to rich people.

Posted by Peter Driscoll | September 20, 2007 3:45 PM

Patrick,

The simple 80%-20% hypothetical was to illustrate the point you made more pithily: that the colonists' objections were really fueled by their tax money being spent elsewhere. Granted, if they had representation they could have changed that, but my point was that if the majority of them were net beneficiaries of the tax, there would have been less revolutionary fervor about not having representation.

As far as the current system in the U.S., the system is highly progressive, but no, it's not just the top 20% who pay net federal income taxes. The top 60% of earners pay at least some net income taxes, though the highest earners pay a vastly disproportionate share. For example, the top 1% of earners pay 37% of all federal income taxes, and the top 25% pay 85%. The bottom 40% of tax payers pay no net federal income taxes.

It's true that payroll taxes are regressive but these taxes entitle payers to benefits which are quite progressive. It's the income taxes that do most of the heavy fiscal lifting in this country, and if you're not paying any, it's hard to argue you're paying your "fair share", to borrow a phrase from our Left. Nevertheless, their strategy remains, as I mentioned previously, "win the votes of those who pay no net federal income taxes by promising them goodies paid for by those who do". Since party affiliation varies inversely with income here (broadly speaking), the Democrats' electoral strength is this appeal to that bottom 40%.

Posted by Fred | September 20, 2007 3:47 PM

The strategy of "win the votes of those who pay no net federal income taxes by promising them goodies paid for by those who do".

That's why I'd be willing to exempt DC from taxes if it meant only net income-tax payers voted in Federal elections, and only property-tax payers voted in city elections.

Posted by SamChevre | September 20, 2007 3:58 PM

"The city is vibrant -- i.e. loaded with life, restaraunts, bars, night spots, people out on the town, going to concerts, sporting events, plays and movies."

Sorry, Left Nut. I haven't spent a lot of time in D.C., so I'll take your word for it. Here in metro New York, the areas called "vibrant" tend to be the ones with higher percentages of poor blacks and/or Latinos, and they don't fit your definition of "vibrant"; instead, "vibrant" is used mainly as a euphemism for having lots of poor blacks and Latinos. In Manhattan, neighborhoods that have new bars, restaurants, night spots, etc. opening up, and lots of people out on the town tend to have increasing numbers of whites (and Asians). On the other hand, neighborhoods where whites are scarce -- say, parts of Upper Manhattan -- are decidedly less "vibrant", by your definition.

For example, last week, to skip traffic on the FDR, the lady friend and I cut across 145th Street to Riverside Drive. Along this cross section of town we saw no white people, numerous African Americans, and not one appealing-looking restaurant or night spot. Instead there were a few cheap clothing stores, fast food restaurants, bodegas, etc.

Posted by Fred | September 20, 2007 4:00 PM

Fred is a racist POS and a liar. If you take money from people and call it payroll taxes and borrow it to spend it on stuff that income taxes should pay, its an income tax. If you make less than about $98,000 the effective rate is 12.4% (remember the Employer's contribution is to cover the "expenses of collecting the tax). As you make more, the % drops. Its regressive. And every wage earner pys it. So when Fred talks of % of income taxes paid, he is lying because the bottom 40% of wage earners pay 12.4% plus, medicare, plus their income tax.

Posted by Peter Driscoll | September 20, 2007 4:01 PM

Republicans won't want DC to get a representative because Republicans are much less marketable to urban (urbane?) minds.

I'm not sure what the party lines are now, by if this issue comes to a head that's where they'll fall.

Posted by JA | September 20, 2007 4:08 PM

Peter,

A little extreme, no? Fred's descriptions are empirically accurate, and not just in New York but in all big cities.

I didn't get the impression that Fred was talking about innateness. My guess is that he was alluding to cultural causes (as you would most likely appeal to socio-economic and/or historical causes). Lamenting outcomes of culture may be insensitive and egocentric, but it is not racist.

Posted by JA | September 20, 2007 4:17 PM

"If you take money from people and call it payroll taxes and borrow it to spend it on stuff that income taxes should pay, its an income tax."

You have a (weak) argument for the decreasing portion of the Social Security tax that represents the "surplus" (i.e., the amount of taxes collected minus the current outlay for Social Security benefits). In 2005, for example, that projected surplus represented about 17% of Social Security tax receipts, so, 87% of the taxes collected went to pay current beneficiaries, and 17% went to the "surplus" where it was borrowed by the federal government to be spent on other things. However the opposite is the case with the Medicare portion of the payroll tax (which is uncapped), which only covers about 50% of the costs of that entitlement. So, since money is fungible, the federal government is effectively using the declining surplus in Social Security tax revenues to make up part of the shortfall in Medicare tax revenues.

"As you make more, the % drops. Its regressive."

Yeah, and the benefits are progressive, as I said. From The Congressional Budget Office (that well-known source of facts for "POS Racists"):

"For people with lower than average earnings, the ratio of the lifetime benefits they receive from Social Security to the lifetime payroll taxes they pay for the program is higher than it is for people with higher average earnings. In that sense, the Social Security system is progressive. For people in the bottom fifth of the earnings distribution, the ratio of benefits to taxes is almost three times as high as it is for those in the top fifth [...]

The Social Security benefit formula is
designed to provide beneficiaries who had lower life-time earnings with monthly benefits that are higher, as a percentage of their lifetime average earnings, than those received by higher-earning beneficiaries."

"So when Fred talks of % of income taxes paid, he is lying because the bottom 40% of wage earners pay 12.4% plus, medicare, plus their income tax."

The bottom 40% pay no net federal income tax, as I said. You can easily confirm this by checking the IRS's website. I'd include a link, but I don't want to violate the link maximum here. If you include payroll taxes, the bottom 20% of tax payers still aren't net tax payers (see the IRS website). Nevertheless, if all you are doing is contributing to your own health and welfare entitlements, you can hardly be considered to be paying your "fair share", can you? After all, you are relying on others to cover the cost of everything else, from defense, to paying the interest on the debt, to paying the salaries for millions of federal employees, etc.

Posted by Fred | September 20, 2007 4:47 PM

"The simple 80%-20% hypothetical was to illustrate the point you made more pithily: that the colonists' objections were really fueled by their tax money being spent elsewhere."

My point!? That wasn't my point at all. My point was that the colonists' motto was "no taxation without representation" (not "no taxation, period") and that that motto is applicable in the District's case too.

"It's true that payroll taxes are regressive but these taxes entitle payers to benefits which are quite progressive".

Well, if you want to ignore Social Security and Medicare which, IIRC, are mostly funded by payroll taxes, than you have to ignore a good chunk of the redistribution you complain about. And if social security benefits are "highly" progressive, than the middle class (or the middle class incomes, to be more precise) pays for this progressiveness (not to speak of the fact that, due to PAYG, you don't pay for your "own" SS-benefits but of those of other people).

"It's the income taxes that do most of the heavy fiscal lifting in this country, and if you're not paying any, it's hard to argue you're paying your "fair share"

First of all, one of the points of progressiveness is supposed to be that the people who disproportionally pay for government services profit (or have profited) dispropotionally from said services. Meaning that they used the public goods paid for by these taxes (defense, infrastructure, law enforcement, education, you name it) to get where they are and to stay there (not to speak of those who earn their considerable income by selling goods and services to the government).

And somebody who doesn't pay income tax but payroll tax pays his "fair share" in the sense of "all one can reasonalby expect him to pay", because if he or she had to pay a flat income tax on top of the payroll tax, he or she could be legitimately seen as overtaxed. Do you really expect somebody working on a minimum-wage job to pay much more income tax?

"their strategy remains, as I mentioned previously, "win the votes of those who pay no net federal income taxes by promising them goodies paid for by those who do".

who, to repeat myself, benefit from these "goodies" if you want to cut SS and MC out of your equation.

"Since party affiliation varies inversely with income here (broadly speaking), the Democrats' electoral strength is this appeal to that bottom 40%".

Funny thing, but if I followed the talking points of the American right in the last 2o years or so correctly (David Brooks, anyone?), then their mantra was that its the afluent, effete, liberal elite who votes Democratic, and that "real", "ordinary" Americans vote Republican. Good to see that the right remembers the stats if they suit their arguments.

Joking aside, but the politics of "I will get you more money from the Government than you pay" has been practiced with gusto by both parties. Remember the "bridge to nowhere"? This game is what drives Congress to a great part, on both sides of the aisle. And lets not forget the huge part of the budget that's corporate welfare in one form or the other. Which explains why corporate doners give so much money for political campaigns.

Posted by Patrick | September 20, 2007 5:06 PM

Going back to the original proposal to rebate income taxes, this would give lots of money to wealthy people who live in DC, and relatively little money to poor people. It would induce a large upward pressure on DC housing prices relative to Maryland and Virginia. Gentrification would ignite even faster than it already has; it would be financially favorable to move into the city, but much more so if you were well off. If you made enough money, the tax cut would more than pay for sending your kids to private school, so you'd get gentrification _and_ possibly even greater school segregation on income lines. Working class DC residents would increasingly get pushed out to places like some of the less desirable sections of Prince George's, or to outlying less-unaffordable areas. There, they'd get to vote, but at considerable social cost.

It's a _terrible_ idea. It does make a good slogan, but slogans are better on license plates than in lawbooks.

Posted by Ben | September 20, 2007 5:11 PM

Fred has made an amazing discovery and I think we've all learned something. In the poorer parts of cities things are kind of crappier than in the richer parts. And the poorer parts of cities tend to be dominated by minorities. That really is something!

BTW, my brother (who is white) lives probably the poorest part of Bed-Sty in Brooklyn. I've been their many times. It's poor, yeah, but I'd definitely describe it as vibrant, not like the really shell-shocked poor neighborhoods I've seen in Atlanta and even in Tallahassee, FL. Seriously.

Posted by Rob Mac | September 20, 2007 5:21 PM

I'm aware Fred is a racist troll, but I wondered whether he might have hit on something with his claim that "vibrant" is a code word for "majority minority." So, I launched a ludicrously unscientific study in which I Googled various District neighborhoods in conjunction with the word "vibrant," disqualifying Capitol Hill, Hillcrest, NoMa, Shaw and Trinidad when too many of the results were not about District. I kept Takoma Park, even though most of the results were for the Maryland half, because the two halves are very similar, and scaled down the responses for Georgetown and Barney Circle to reflect the percentage of first page results that weren't about the District neighborhood.

Results:

Georgetown 461700
Mount Pleasant 94900
Dupont Circle 55000
Navy Yard 32400
Anacostia 32300
Adams Morgan 27500
Takoma Park 27500
Foggy Bottom 25100
U Street 22700
Columbia Heights 18900
Petworth 18800
Eastern Market 18300
Brookland 17900
Cleveland Park 13900
Penn Quarter 12100
Woodley Park 11200
Deanwood 1300
Ivy City 766
Shepherd Park 750
Tenleytown 725
Eckington 664
Burleith 614
Glover Park 581
Truxton 516
Barney Circle 436
Barry Farms 90

For those of you who know these neighborhoods, it would appear that, subject to a bit of noise in the data, a neighborhood is typically called "vibrant" when it is, in fact, vibrant. Wealthy and mostly white neighborhoods known for their upscale commercial strips (Georgetown, Dupont Circle) appear at the top of the list, while wealthy and mostly white neighborhoods known for quiet uneventfulness (Shepherd Park, Tenleytown, Burleith, Glover Park) are at the bottom. The historic entertainment and cultural centers of black DC (Anacostia, U Street) score quite highly, while heavily black neighborhoods known for their lack of active commercial properties (Ivy City, Eckington, Truxton, Barney Circle, Barry Farms) gravitate to the bottom of the list.

Conclusion: racist troll. Boy, did I expend a lot of words to reach a "duh" conclusion.

Posted by cminus | September 20, 2007 5:24 PM

By the way, "vibrant" has two meanings in mediaese: the first is that it refers to neighborhoods where attractive young women are seen on the streets at night in large numbers -- e.g., Georgetown. (This is the equivalent of the term "nice suburb" which means it has lots of high-scoring public school students.)

The other use of "vibrant" is as an all-purpose compliment when the writer can't think of anything else to say about a thing or place. Here are some examples from the Wall Street Journal editorial page:

"...President Bush is determined to keep the dynamism vibrant, and to encourage and empower the poor to take part in it, rather than to suggest they are ..."

SES - To use "keep the dynamism vibrant" and "empower the poor" in one sentence, hoo boy, that's some fancy writin'! (By the way, what kind of "dynamism" is not "vibrant?" "Listless dynamism?" "Lethargic vibrancy?")

"... The Iraq I saw was a society on the move, a vibrant land with a hardy people experiencing the first heady taste of freedom..."

"... and that is to reveal Baghdad as it truly is, a vibrant city, able and ready to welcome the world business community, ..."

SES - So, when your windows rattle in Baghdad, that's not a car bomb or IED going off, that's just the local vibrancy manifesting itself.

Back home in the USA, things are a-quivering, too:

"... The new creative class craves a vibrant nightlife, outdoor sports facilities and neighborhoods vibrant with street ..."

"... We have a vibrant Islamic community of emigrants from across the world. ..."

"... Like California, New York City can boast a vibrant immigrant community and is a magnet for ..."

SES- Whenever I read about "vibrant immigrant neighborhoods," I wonder exactly which ones has the writer has been to, if any. Come to the vast immigrant neighborhoods of the San Fernando Valley and check out the vibrancy: there isn't any. They're boring, tacky, and low-brow. There's no culture beyond the video store. It was like that before, too, but 35 years ago we expected the place to improve a little with time, not regress.

And sometimes the political is personal:

"But as times have changed, so have I. Today, as the father of two stunning daughters, and husband of a vibrant, sexy and successful wife who has ..."

Perhaps this gentleman's vibrant wife will induct her stunning daughters into the intimate secrets of personal vibration and soon all three will be happily vibrating away.

Posted by Steve Sailer | September 20, 2007 5:43 PM

This post really isn't about the progressiveness of tax codes, but I really have to comment on the idea that our federal government's tax structure exists to transfer wealth from the rich to the poor. This is an idea conservatives love, but once you think about it a little bit, you realize that it is dead wrong.

Patrick hits at the key realization here. The government consists of far more than the IRS. It provides a huge array of services and preserves social institutions that make it extremely valuable to be an American. Particulary an American with reasonable wealthy parents. People who make a lot of money in the United States extract an enormous percentage of their paychecks from the value offered by their citizenship and residency. The same government taxing a much smaller percentage of those earnings hardly deserves to be called a wealth transfer.

Posted by mpowell | September 20, 2007 5:49 PM

"My point!? That wasn't my point at all."

Sorry. I gave you credit for being pithy when you were apparently just being unclear. Nevertheless, my point stands: the crux of the grievance was tax money collected on the colonists in a regressive fashion but not spent on the colonists. Had these taxes 1) been targeted only on the wealthiest colonists, and 2) spent on the rest of the colonists, there would have been less revolutionary fervor.

"Well, if you want to ignore Social Security and Medicare which, IIRC, are mostly funded by payroll taxes..."

Read the post directly above yours, which explains about the payroll taxes and entitlements, progressiveness of benefits, etc. You seem to be understandably unfamiliar with this.

"First of all, one of the points of progressiveness is supposed to be that the people who disproportionally pay for government services profit (or have profited) dispropotionally from said services."

I'm afraid this old chestnut wouldn't stand up to an empirical analysis. Think of all the social service, schooling, police, corrections, and criminal justice resources disproportionately used by those who pay the least in taxes. You might respond that this spending is to protect the middle class and those more affluent, but do you even believe that? Those at highest risk from the violent low-income criminals are other low-income people. Also, the upper income classes often pay out of pocket for forms of protection from the criminal underclass: doorman buildings, private schools, alarm systems, firearms, etc.

"Do you really expect somebody working on a minimum-wage job to pay much more income tax?"

Not really, but they shouldn't be made to feel entitled to transfer payments from those who do.

"Good to see that the right remembers the stats if they suit their arguments."

From the Pew Center:

"In the data Pew collected in the first quarter of 2007, Democrats have a nearly three-to-one identification advantage (48% vs. 18% Republican) among voters earning $20,000 or less, an advantage that shrinks as income increases."

"Joking aside, but the politics of "I will get you more money from the Government than you pay" has been practiced with gusto by both parties. Remember the "bridge to nowhere"?"

You are confusing Congressional district-related pork barrel politics (which is a bipartisan pursuit, but pales in scope to our entitlement spending) with our previous discussion.

Posted by Fred | September 20, 2007 6:16 PM

Very bad deal for DC. It gets$ 6.64 in expenditures for every dollar sent in.

This is very, very misleading. That $6.64 isn't money spent on the city, it's $6.64 spent in the city. That is, it includes all of the money spent on running the federal government in DC. But it's even more misleading than that. Because the city's own budget has to be enacted by Congress as a federal appropriation, that money -- raised by the city through local taxes -- gets counted as federal spending too, even though it's not actually federal funds being spent. And for those who may have missed it, the direct federal payment to the district ended a decade ago.

Posted by Herschel | September 20, 2007 6:59 PM

The main reason this proposal is a bad one is that it would overwhelmingly benefit the wealthiest residents of DC, and do little to nothing for the poorest.

APS

Posted by Ape Man | September 20, 2007 7:11 PM

Other cities with high percentages of shithole neighborhoods have proposed being made "tax-free" to "help the poor" while of course retaining their local vote and getting oodles of money from other state residents and the Feds in transfer payments.

It never flies.

Generally because the reason that neighborhoods become shitholes is the behavior and pathologies of the dysfunctional poor. Cities improve when (1)discipline is imposed on the scumbags, as Giuliani did; (2)The scumbags move elsewhere; (3)the scumbags abandon their initial dysfuctional behavior as new arivals, immigrants and become productive citizens.

Taxes and voting rights have nothing to do with fixing cultural behaviors. And the longer the dysfuctionalism exists, unchanged in generations, the more intractible it is.

***********************

Meanwhile, the black mayor of Philadephia says there is an epidemic of black murdering and other pathologies afoot. (blacks kill about 1 resident a day in Philly. Of the murders, blacks kill blacks 80% of the time, 10% of the time they kill other races, and 10% of the time other races kill within their races with rare instances of whites or hispanics killing a black).

The mayor says the black violence is beyond the ability of the police to control. He is suggesting a "corps" of up to 10,000 mostly black men who will preach to the thugs that the mayhem must end, especially blacks killing blacks..

Philly is not alone. A lot of focus went to NOLA and it's crime explosion and predation on hispanic immigrants helping rebuild once the native dirtballs returned - but black violence is increasing again in most urban areas. Blacks now commit the majority of rapes, armed robberies, cop killings, and barely - murders, now - in the USA.

With the violence spree, backlash is rising. And with hispanics and Asians now victimized by blacks more than whites are in States like Nevada, California, Florida, and well as major cities - some interesting dynamics are in play.

In Los Angeles, hispanic and Asian gangs and residents are actively seeking to cleanse blacks from their schools and neighborhoods to make them safer. Call it racist, but they believe the answer to black predation is no blacks living in their midst. Including areas long associated with blacks but now hispanic/asian majority like Watts.
And California, Texas sociologists have conceeded that while they were fixated on "white racism" they were not paying adequate attention to how alienated other races were becoming to native-born "underclass" blacks.

"The present hostile relationship between hispanics and blacks and certain Asians and blacks here in LA metro were long in the making. When hispanic immigrants were lower in number and largely avoiding complaining to law enforcement, when Asians were limited to small groups, they were in a sense easy prey for black criminals and intimidation..Now they have the numbers and power, and there is a communal sort of payback in progress that needs urgent Govrnment attention.."

Posted by Chris Ford | September 20, 2007 8:54 PM

"Three, if you eliminated federal taxes in the District, the vast majority of current residents would be priced out of the local market within just a few years."

Thus automatically gaining the vote...

Posted by Brett Bellmore | September 20, 2007 9:21 PM

retrocession to MD now!

Posted by BF | September 20, 2007 10:57 PM

Relative to those on this blog complaining of the federal payment to the District of Columbia, this payment is in lieu of property and business taxes to which the federal government is exempt.

Posted by SLC | September 21, 2007 9:26 AM

you'd get a competent, effective city government in return

Fred, America simply does not work this way. American governments, representative and otherwise, don't view their purpose as creating efficient, functional infrastructure and government services. Rather, they view themselves much like a slumlord views his apartment buildings-- sources of reliable revenue generation to be improved only when the legal system or a rent strike threatens to interupt his cash stream which is then used to buy stuff for himself or pass out favors to his friends. Even before Home Rule, the federal government took little pride in its own capital outside of the immediate area around the national mall.

Government services and infrastructure can only come through representation and the representatives' ability to make threats and deals with his/her colleagues under pain of losing his/her job. I'd wish that politicians in America wanted to deliver efficient government services and build shiny, impressive infrastructure on principle alone, but I've concluded that they will only do so when the question, "what's in it for me?" is answered.

Posted by Tyro | September 21, 2007 9:41 AM

Relative to those on this blog complaining of the federal payment to the District of Columbia, this payment is in lieu of property and business taxes to which the federal government is exempt.

As I said above, this payment (which was never explicitly "in lieu of taxes", and was never linked to any formula whatever) ended a decade ago. The District gets no federal payment.

Posted by Herschel | September 21, 2007 10:16 AM

Additionally, not only do the Feds own huge tracts of valuable land for which no taxes are paid, DC pays through the nose for police and security services related to things like the IMF meetings, visits by foreign dignitaries, etc. This stuff should be paid for by the feds, but isn't.

Posted by Klein's Tiny Left Nut | September 21, 2007 10:41 AM

"Fred, America simply does not work this way."

I understand that. That's why I prefaced my comment about how a well-run, autocratic government such as the one Singapore has would be better for D.C. residents than their democratic city governments by writing, "Since we're in fantasy land".

Posted by Fred | September 21, 2007 11:33 AM

Fred,

I will fight to the death for my right to chew gum. No Singaporean utopia for this kid.

Posted by Klein's Tiny Left Nut | September 21, 2007 12:02 PM

What this proposal does, bottom line, is offer Washingtonians an opportunity to sell their rights as American citizens.

I would hope no one who truly loves this country (with all her flaws) would accept such a cynical offer.

Posted by Lisa | September 21, 2007 12:03 PM

What this proposal does, bottom line, is offer Washingtonians an opportunity to sell their rights as American citizens.

Uh...please try to keep up. Washingtonians don't have the same rights as other American citizens NOW. We are not represented in Congress. Congress has exclusive legislative authority over the District, but we are not represented in Congress. Which part of this are you having trouble following?

Posted by Herschel | September 21, 2007 12:29 PM

Fred, if DC could be ruled like singapore, there would likely never have been a push for home rule in the first place. Because of the political culture of the USA, the only way to get a good deal about the government is by leveraging power to force the government to improve things using the threat of the voting booth. If that were not necessary then, as I said, this issue would not come up in the first place. The mere existence of this discussion necessarily implies that your scenario isn't even remotely within reality.

Posted by Tyro | September 21, 2007 12:30 PM