Norton Condemns President’s D.C. Budget, Says She Will Defeat It Again

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) said that President Donald Trump's fiscal year (FY) 2020 District of Columbia budget, released today, is largely recycled from his FY 19 D.C. budget, and that she will again defeat its most harmful provisions. The FY 20 budget, like the FY 19 budget, would zero out funding for the D.C. Tuition Assistance Grant Program (DCTAG) and impose four anti-home-rule riders, including prohibiting D.C. from spending its local funds on abortion, recreational marijuana commercialization, and carrying out the Death with Dignity Act and the Reproductive Health Non-Discrimination Act.

"Like last year, the President's budget is dead on arrival in Congress," Norton said. "We defeated most of these proposals last Congress and will do so again. I particularly want to assure D.C. parents and students, thousands of whom are away at college now, that I do not believe they are in danger of losing their DCTAG funds. DCTAG has always been funded every year by Republican and Democratic congresses alike and, until President Trump, Republican presidents as well."

The enacted FY 19 D.C. spending bill provided $40 million for DCTAG, the fourth consecutive year Norton has secured that record funding level, despite the fact that the President's budget proposed zeroing it out and that the original versions of the House and Senate bills included only $30 million. The enacted FY 19 D.C spending bill only had two anti-home-rule riders (abortion and recreational marijuana commercialization), even though the original House bill included seven. With Democrats controlling the House, Norton will continue to fight to remove the abortion and recreational marijuana commercialization riders in FY 20.

Like the President's FY 19 budget, the FY 20 budget request does not provide funding to the D.C. Water and Sewer Authority (DC Water) for ongoing work to control flooding in the District and to clean up the Anacostia and Potomac Rivers and Rock Creek. Norton secured $8 million for DC Water in the enacted FY 19 D.C. spending bill, and she is confident she will be able to get at least that much again because appropriators recognize that DC Water serves the Capitol and federal buildings as well.

The budget also includes Norton's annual provision exempting D.C. from a shutdown during the fiscal year, which was especially important during the recent shutdown, the longest in U.S. history. The budget request contains $4.75 million to combat HIV/AIDS in D.C., funding Norton has gotten every year to help make up for the 10 years when a rider kept D.C. from spending its local funds on needle exchange programs. She said the budget, as usual, provides funding ($413,000) for the Major General David F. Wherley, Jr. District of Columbia National Guard Retention and College Access Program for tuition for the D.C. National Guard. This program helps boost enlistment and retention in the D.C. National Guard by providing financial assistance to D.C. guardsmen to attend undergraduate, vocational, or technical courses.