Norton on House Floor to Push for D.C.'s Right to Spend Its Local Funds While Congress Battles Cuts

Norton on House Floor Today to Push for D.C. to Be Able to Spend Its Local Funds While Congress Continues to Battle Over Budget Cuts

March 15, 2011

WASHINGTON, DC -- Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) today will speak on the House floor during the general debate for a three-week continuing resolution (CR), the second one this Congress, to avert a federal government shutdown, which would also mean a District of Columbia government shutdown. Norton will use her time on the floor to push for D.C. to have the authority to spend its local funds for the remainder of the fiscal year, and to warn the Congress that a local jurisdiction is being needlessly pulled into a federal fight. Last week, Norton introduced the District of Columbia Local Funds Continuation Act, a critical measure to permanently protect D.C. from federal government shutdowns by always allowing the District to spend its local funds for the remainder of a fiscal year if Congress has not approved the District's local budget by the start of that fiscal year.

"Congress is apparently fine with running the federal government two to three weeks at a time under successive CRs, but D.C. cannot afford this outrage," said Norton. "Successive CRs impose a calculable operational cost on D.C., in addition to significantly increasing the city's costs of doing business, further burdening D.C. taxpayers."

Since the budget battle began, the Congresswoman has attempted to amend the short-term CR that expires March 18 to allow the District to spend its local funds for the remainder of the fiscal year in order to avoid the possibility of a District government shutdown if Congress fails to pass another appropriations bill by March 18, and to avoid the city having to operate under successive CRs. Last week, she also offered a similar amendment to the Surface Transportation Extension Act of 2011. The Rules Committee refused both of her amendments.

Norton's House Floor remarks are below:

Look, the majority has chosen to run the government, the federal government, from CR to CR. But the majority has no right to inflict this operational outrage on the local funds of a local jurisdiction, the District of Columbia.

The majority may want to incur for the federal government the operational difficulties. After all, the District of Columbia delivers services to federal officials, including the President, federal buildings, foreign embassies, and the like. But does the majority really want to risk, to put the District and its operations at risk or to place, what Wall Street almost surely will do, a risk premium on the District due to the uncertainty that we are at bay from CR to CR?

This is a fragile economy for every big city, but D.C.'s local budget was approved a year ago in the city and last summer by the Appropriations Committees. Yet the District of Columbia is being held hostage to a federal fight, although the District of Columbia can do nothing to free itself from this federal fight.

I have tried to get the District on successive CRs so that we could spend our own money all year. There is no disapproval of that here. I wager that very few Members even know that the District would close down if the federal government closed down; would be perplexed by it; would have no objections to our spending our own local money all year long.

We raise and manage $8 billion. We have a right to spend our local funds without being dragged into a federal fight.

You can't run big city from CR to CR. I ask you to find a way between now and three weeks to free D.C. to run its own local city for the rest of the fiscal year.

Let my people go!