If you haven’t yet heard, and you may not have, as this doesn’t seem to be getting a whole lot of play in the mainstream press, Mayor Fenty has proposed one last round of cuts to the 2011 fiscal year budget, including more cuts to child care subsidies, TANF, adult job training, disability assistance, the grandparent caregivers program, the local rent supplement program, etc. As a low-income resident of the District, I’m feelin’ a little panicky.
It may be a last ditch effort to do as much damage as possible to the constituents that threw him out of office, but we cannot let it stand. At issue is a $188 million budget gap. On Tuesday, December 7th, the DC Council will decide how to close that gap. The budget that lame-duck Mayor Adrian Fenty has proposed would cut vital programs that help low-income and working families. (Low-income and working families who are often one in the same.) According to Joni Podschun, Save Our Safety Net, nearly 40% of the cuts (that’s $50 million) would impact human services, even though these programs make up only a quarter of the city’s budget and have experienced deep reductions–approximately $100 million–in the last three years. Fortunately there is a clear alternative. A one percent income tax increase on income above $200,000, would raise $65 million. That’s $15 million more than would be needed to keep funding of social service programs at their current level.
There are some on the council who will say this alternative is crazy. That to consider this more progressive tax income rate would be engaging in class-warfare and what’s more, it might just damage our triple-A bond rating. I’ll admit it. I don’t even know what a triple-A bond rating means but I’m guessing that it doesn’t mean much to my neighbors and I in Wards 7 & 8, suffering under a 19 and 30 percent unemployment rate respectively. Those of us who are not in poverty yet are often one pay check away from it, and may find ourselves in desperate need of those social services that the city council is considering reducing further, as if $100 million worth of cuts in the last three years isn’t enough. Thus, that panicky feeling.
What does any of this have to do with the above video of Queen Noble, former candidate for congress as a representative of the District of Columbia? This video was shot and edited by Judith Hawkins, co-producer of Valencia’s It Is What It Is Mobile Talk Show (which I suggest you subscribe to on Youtube.) It was one of the first videos that Judith edited as a member of the Grassroots Media Project. She uploaded it to Youtube and it’s since gotten thousands of hits and hundreds of comments, some positive, some negative, a lot of them very funny.
Although Queen Noble may not fit squarely into what we consider to be a sociological norm, she has brought a lot of attention to issues that are important to her and to the residents of the District of Columbia. She might not be the best candidate for public office, but one cannot imagine her cutting an additional $50 million from the city’s safety net at a time when poverty in the District is already increasing at an alarming rate, without cuts to services meant to ease that situation. Class warfare indeed. It is conjecture on my part, but I believe Queen Noble wouldn’t hesitate to vote for legislation that increases the income tax rate just one percent on the city’s wealthiest and least needy residents.
Because she is what she is, she may not be the best representative for the causes she espouses, namely reparations for descendants of enslaved Africans and reform of the DC police department, but at least she brings attention to those issues. I post her here because I want us–DC progressives in general and progressives who want to produce through the Grassroots Media Project specifically–to go to the People’s Hearing, scheduled for Tuesday, December 7, at 9 AM at the Wilson Building, and videotape someone or preferably several people who can represent the issue. If Queen Noble can go viral nationwide, is it not worth our effort to find those people who are impacted by the cuts in social services, a number of whom we hope will be present at Tuesday’s People’s Hearing, and put there stories out there? If we can make this issue go viral in Washington, DC, we might just be able to push the council into adopting a more progressive tax rate. It’s certainly worth a shot.
Vince Gray is very proud of the legislation he sponsored making pre-k education universal for all 3- and 4-year-olds. He declared it as one of his major accomplishments in all of his town hall meetings prior to November’s general election. To be sure, early childhood education is extremely important. Children who receive high-quality child care from an early age are better prepared for school, more likely to graduate high school, go on to college, and to stay out of prison. But which service providers are able to take advantage of the money made available by this legislation is also important.
When the bill to make pre-k education universal was first proposed in 2008, 50 percent of the new slots provided were supposed to go to community-based child care providers. By the time the legislation was passed, that number was down to 25 percent. In addition, funding for the District’s Child Care Subsidy Program, which also benefits community-based child care providers as well as low-income parents in need of affordable child care, has been cut each of the past five years.
While Gray wants to do right by his youngest constituents, he seems less concerned about their parents or the middle-class workforce that at one time provided the backbone for DC’s tax base. A pattern that we should be familiar with from the Fenty Administration, who closed down Department of Recreation Early Childhood programs in wards 6, 7 & 8 while leaving the same programs open in the wealthier wards. This action, which Gray is unlikely to reverse, insured an increase in the unemployment rates in those wards hardest hit by the recession as child care providers from the Department of Recreation were fired. The closing of the Recreation Department child care programs also increased the burden on low-income parents by decreasing the number of affordable child care providers within the city’s poorest communities, a number which has already been decreased by the consistent de-funding of the District’s Child Care Subsidy Program.
Subsidized child care, which provides low-income parents with vouchers that pay a portion of their child care costs, is one of the most important work support programs available in DC and around the country. Child care costs can easily amount to $15,000 per year, per child. Without subsidies that help to make child care affordable for low-income families, thousands of parents in DC would be unable to work, unable to look for work or attend school so they are better qualified for work.
In addition to the huge benefits for children and their families, investing in early child care and education helps to strengthen a field whose workforce in DC is predominantly low-income women of color. Child care providers rely on these subsidies from the government to cover their costs. Without them, they would have to lay off the hundreds of people, mostly women, who work in this field. Many child care providers have already had to close their doors for good, even though these are precisely the kinds of small business that Gray claims to support.
The District of Columbia City Council will hold a a public hearing Tuesday November 30, 2010 to hear testimony regarding childcare in the District’s budget. Community members who are impacted–children, parents, child-care providers, etc., are encouraged to testify. If you are interested in testifying at the hearing, attending in support or getting more information, contact Ben Parisi, Child Care organizer for Empower DC at (202) 234-9119 or Ben (at) empowerdc.org.
On any given day in the District of Columbia, 12,000 children, families, and individuals are homeless and or in need of food; 82% of these families are headed by single women. As we approached the Thanksgiving holiday, reporter Brenda Hayes and producer Rebecca Steadwell sought out the city’s homeless as well as those who help to meet their needs and asked them one simple question. Are you thankful? Their report gives a candid glimpse into the day-to-day reality of the District’s neediest residents.
Organizations highlighted in this piece include the Community for Creative Non-Violence and DC Central Kitchen who help to provide over 600,000 meals a year to DC residents. Although CCNV relies entirely on donations to fund its operations, DC Central Kitchen receives upwards of $50,000 a year from the District government. That may change as the DC Council decides how to fix a $175 million budget shortfall. But DC Central Kitchen and organizations like it don’t have to end up on the city budget chopping block.
Rather than more cuts, it is time for a balanced approach that includes progressive revenue. Right now DC’s top tax rate (8.5%) starts at $40,000 a year. City leaders should create a new tax bracket of 1% more for income over $200,000. The revenue raised can help preserve the programs we are thankful for. If you care about this issue, send an email to Chairman Gray and ask him to take a balanced approach and protect the programs you care about.
That’s right, gentle Ben Parisi, Empower DC’s Childcare For All Campaign Organizer, pictured here holding the child of an Empower DC member, got a bit riled up in the aftermath of some rather shallow reporting on last week’s town hall meetings.
The back story: City Council Chairman Vince Gray, soon to be Mayor Gray, has been shoring up his presumptive victory with a series of town hall meetings. According to Wikepedia a town hall meeting is an informal public meeting where members of the community are invited to voice their opinions, and hear the responses from public figures and elected officials about shared subjects of interest. With that in mind, members of Empower DC attended a number of Gray’s town hall meetings and made a few demands. Specifically, they demanded that presumptive Mayor Gray honor the promise that the city made to rebuild Bruce Monroe Elementary school and that the city fully fund the childcare subsidy program.
DCist columnist Martin Austermuhle seems to have a different understanding of the purpose of a town hall meeting, I think taking issue with the expressing of demands in a loud and visible manor. I’m going to quote his references to Empower DC here because I personally think they’re funny.
Regarding Empower DC’s appearance at the Ward 1 town hall meeting, Austermuhle said:
Hey, folks who really want Bruce Monroe Elementary re-built (it was closed in 2007) — we get it. Thirty of you showed up, you held up your signs, you started a chant, you asked Gray a question and then you walked out. Everyone has their cause. But there’s no need to use the town halls to make us all painfully aware of them.
After the Ward 8 town hall meeting, Austermuhle said this:
…this was the second consecutive town hall where Empower D.C. has shown up with signs and t-shirts and demanded something concrete from Gray. …you guys have a noble cause, but less-than-noble ways of communicating it. Let’s just imagine how chaotic the next two town halls would be if everyone with a point to make decided to do it as loudly and visibly as you have. Not so much fun anymore, is it?
Is he serious?! That would be SO much fun! Especially if everybody who had a point to make encouraged city officials to prioritize the needs of the city’s low- and moderate-income residents over developers and the wealthy transient population who has no real stake in the city because they’re going to leave when their bosses get voted out of power anyway. But I digress. Ben Parisi was not amused by Austermuhle’s disparaging remarks. He posted this response on Facebook. Read it, if you dare.
Ben Parisi’s Response to DCist
First of all, Martin Austermuhle, I should thank you for what in one light is some very generous coverage. You write of the Ward 8 town hall that “this was the second consecutive town hall where Empower DC has shown up with signs and t-shirts and demanded something concrete from Gray.” And then you wonder what it would be like if everyone decided to make their points “as loudly and visibly” as Empower DC has. So, thank you – because visibly making a concrete demand of our elected officials is exactly what we’re out to do and, indeed, it’s what 50 of our members did this week at the Ward 1 and Ward 8 Town Halls. They should be commended for their efforts at keeping our presumptive mayor accountable. Gray once called the closing of Bruce-Monroe a “sad joke” and he has campaigned on an early education platform. No wonder why we think he should commit to rebuilding Bruce-Monroe and reimbursing the professionals who provide child care for low-income families a fair rate.
I guess this all seems too much for you, is that it Martin? You think that you should not have to be made “painfully aware” of these issues at a town hall, as you say. Was it really that painful? Was witnessing a group of citizens empowered and confident enough to stand truth to power and demand what they have been promised really that painful to you? Where did it hurt exactly? Maybe issues of child care, the privatization of DC’s school system and the excruciatingly profound ripple effects that they have wouldn’t be quite so painful to you if you were confronted with them on a more regular basis.
Maybe if, as the 50 Empower DC members who showed up to express their opinion this week to our new Mayor, you confronted these realities on a daily basis you would be more sensitive to the real pain in this situation. Not that pain you feel watching a forceful and powerful display of citizens’ dissent, but the pain of having to leave your job because the child care center you took your child to closed, knowing that you only have a few weeks before you’ll be unable to provide for your family, and knowing that subsidized child care slots are few and far between and getting fewer and farther with every passing day that our elected officials decide not to do a thing about it.
Maybe you don’t even need to experience all that yourself. Maybe it would be enough if our news outlets and online media sources would decide once in a while to cover the stories of the unemployed and working low-income residents. Hmm, let’s see… On DCist.com the closest thing I see is your piece about the town halls – except there you belittle the issues and the people literally standing up for them. What a shame that this city’s media doesn’t really care to cover the stories that matter. And what a shame that in the few instances we get our stories covered, it is by someone with your perspective who willfully chooses to ignore the truth of the situation.
You accurately quote both the demands of Empower DC members as well as Gray’s response. But did you ever stop to consider what those words actually mean? In the case of the child care provider who asked that Gray make a commitment to increasing provider reimbursement rates in his first 180 days in office, those words mean a great deal. It means that she will be able to continue operating her center. It means that the hundreds of child care professionals employed in centers and homes like hers will be able to continue working and earning a wage. With an increase in reimbursements, which by the way (since you failed to quote this part of the question) are federally mandated to occur every two years but haven’t happened in DC since 2004, that wage might even be able to go up a little bit. It might even be able to be at or above DC’s living wage of $12.60 per hour, which most child care professionals don’t receive today because reimbursements are so low. An increase in the rate of reimbursement would mean that parents at those centers would be able to keep their jobs, confident in the fact that their child is safe and being well prepared for school during the day. And those children, as decades of research has shown us, will be more prepared to enter school, more likely to graduate high school, go on to college, and stay out of jail. Wow. All that from an increase in a reimbursement rate for a child care provider? That’s right, Martin. If you had taken a few minutes after the town hall to – I don’t know, what’s the word you journalists use for talking to people – interview one of the Empower DC members you might have learned all of this.
And if you’d really listened to Gray’s response, you might well have realized that it was not true. He is trying to convince everyone of a falsehood, that giving someone something means taking it away from someone else. That is not how a community works. That is certainly not how a city, let alone the “One City” of the Gray campaign, should work. Is the economy tight? Absolutely. Just talk to any of those child care providers who are trying to keep their centers open, or any of the parents who are struggling to pay their parental co-pay on top of their rent. We all know it’s a rough economic time. But if Gray decided to do what thousands of people asked him to do months ago, there would be a little more wiggle room. That is, if he decided, instead of trying to gain the affection of the wealthy DC residents who spurned him in favor of Adrian Dog-Park Fenty, to create new tax brackets above the ridiculously low current top tax bracket of $40,000, then he would be able to raise the revenue we need to make the critical investment in social services like child care. But do you know what would happen then, if Gray decided to raise taxes on people making, say $200,000 a year? They wouldn’t visit his town halls wearing Empower DC t-shirts and holding signs. They wouldn’t stand on the street passing out leaflets trying to encourage poor people to stand in solidarity with them. They probably wouldn’t even have to talk to each other. But one by one they would send an email – they might even pick up the phone or – Heavens! – visit the Wilson Building. They would tell Gray, very politely – no chanting, no marching – that he should think twice about that new income tax bracket. They would ask him to remember who paid for all those yard signs, who got those television commercials on air, and who’s going to pay for his transition team. And, just like we’ve seen countless times from others in his position, he will back down. Unless people, a lot of us, together with the same message, maybe even the same t-shirt and a fun chant or two, stand together, forcing him to remember the voters whose deeply felt anger allowed him to take the role he now has – lest he forget that his opponent was unelected, it was not Gray who was elected.
And, Martin, considering the low opinion you clearly hold of the organized group of Empower DC members present at these town halls, you do well to remember Gray’s own call to organize. At the Ward 8 town hall he talked again of statehood and what it would take to get us there. He told us that he would not be able to do anything by himself, that a closed door meeting between him and a few congresspeople wouldn’t cut it. He told us we, in the thousands, would have to stand behind him in support. Funny. That sounds like something – that sounds like the 50 Empower DC members who stood behind their spokesperson who asked a question, made a demand of Gray. Funny that the two visions get such different reception. Funny that Gray can actually quote* Frederick Douglass in saying that “power concedes nothing without a demand” – yet both he and the media covering the story look disdainfully upon those who have dared to make a demand of power.
*For the record, Gray actually misquoted this, saying “struggle” instead of “demand” but this is no doubt the quote he intended.
This video was produced for Empower DC’s Childcare for All Campaign, which brings together residents who are directly impacted by the lack of quality, affordable and accessible childcare in DC for low and moderate income working families. Specifically, the campaign has been advocating for full funding of the Child Care Subsidy Program by the city council. Last year the council cut $4 million from the program and Mayor Fenty’s proposed budget was slated to cut an additional $4 million this year. But lobbying efforts paid off, and much of the funding was restored. I believe this video had a positive impact. Shout outs must be made to videographer Lorenz Wheatley and Hip Hop artist Head-Roc for providing the soundtrack for this video and for the Childcare For All campaign.
Comments are closed 
