By Guest Contributor, on May 7th, 2012 Cross-posted from the Fair Budget Coalition Facebook Page
When faced with the impossible choices that many DC residents have to make, what would DC Council members choose? Pay rent or buy groceries? Buy a metrocard to get to work or school supplies for your kids? Over the last few years the Mayor and DC Council have cut funding to safety net programs like affordable housing, homeless serivces, TANF, Child Care and more. This year millions more in cuts to these programs are on the chopping block. Meanwhile, DC residents are forced to make impossible choices to make ends meet. Join us as we fight CUTS to the safety net and show the Councilmembers what it’s really like to live in poverty. A DAY IN THE STRIFE: A Tour of Life on the Poverty Line Thursday, May 10th: 10:00am-Noon At the Wilson Building 1350 Pennsylvania Ave NW Lunch will be provided Bring your ID to enter the building And BRING AN EXTRA SHOE to carry along as we tour! We want to ask Councilmembers to picture what it’s like to walk a mile in our shoes. For more information contact 202-328-1262 or makeonecitypossible@gmail.com To learn more about the campaign, visit: www.makeonecitypossible.com This event is organized by the Fair Budget Coalition @FairBudgetDC www.facebook.com/FairBudgetDC
By Liane Scott, on April 26th, 2012 
Above Composite by Daniel del Pielago who says: Vince Gray and Kaya Henderson are doing nothing different than Adrian Fenty and Michelle Rhee – Disinvest in schools, Close Schools, Repeat!
The April 25, 2012 edition of WPFW’s Latino Media Collective focused on the DC Public School budget for fiscal year 2013. Mayor Vincent Gray is quick to point out that there are no proposed cuts to the DCPS budget, which is true enough. While the amount the city is planning to spend on education has not changed from 2012 to 2013, the source of those funds and the ultimate destination has. The problem in a nutshell is the cost of Michelle Rhee’s pet project the IMPACT teacher evaluation system. Bonuses paid to “highly effective” teachers was coming from private sources (mostly the Walton Foundation, i.e. Walmart). Those private funds went away along with Michelle Rhee and the cost for the bonuses now gets plowed into the budget for each individual school. So, while schools are paying for IMPACT, they won’t have money for other things like librarians, special education coordinators, etc. How this is going to improve the quality of education in DC’s public schools and in the charter school system is unclear.
Latino Media Collective co-hosts Daniel del Pielago and Oscar Fernandez were joined in the studio by Soumya Bhat, Education Finance and Policy Analyst at the DC Fiscal Policy Institute and Bruce Monroe at Parkview Elementary School Parent Leaders Sequnely Gray and Beverly West.
This broadcast gives more incite into the impact of Mayor Gray’s proposed DCPS budget on students than anything you’ll find in the mainstream press. I’m just sayin’. [haiku url=”http://www.grassrootsmediaproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/wpfw_Latino_Media_Collective_on_DCPS_-Budget_4-25-12.mp3″ title=”Latino Media Collective on DCPS Budget”]
By Guest Contributor, on April 24th, 2012 
Crossposted from DC Independent Media Center, Written by Luke
On the 18th of April, the City Council held hearings on Mayor Gray’s budget, the one with tens of millions in housing cuts and a proposal to infest DC’s road intersections with compined speed/red light cameras. The housing cuts in the proposed budget drew a substantial protest outside, even as the hearings continued inside.
The rally outside the Wilson Building while the hearing continues.
The Amazing Disappearing Budget
Kwame Brown at Housing Rally
Raw Audio of April 18 Housing Budget Rally: [haiku url=”http://www.grassrootsmediaproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/housing_budget_rally_4-18-2012_raw_audio.mp3″ title=”April 18 Housing Budget Rally Raw Audio”]
Table of contents of raw audio:
Disappearing Housing Budget Kwame Brown Formerly Homeless #1 Formerly Homeless #2
Yes, you heard that: Kwame Brown, who has previously voted against services like libraries, put the hearing in recess so he could speak at the protest to float his proposed modification to the budget: Take half the money to be used to pay back 4 days of unpaid furloughs against DC government workers and put it back into the housing programs.
The demands of the rally were as follows:
Fully fun the Housing Production Trust Fund
Fund permanent solutions to homelessness
Maintain the Home Purchase Assistance Program at its current level
Countering Kwame Brown’s partial proposal based on the current budget surplus, here’s a proposal of my own:
The housng crisis is due in large part to the invasion of DC by upscale white-collar types. An increase in the income tax on DC’s wealthy would either fund the Housing Production Trust fund and other housing programs, or else drive some of the wealthy out of town, reducing the incentive to destroy affordable housing for condos. At the same time, increase the gas and/or pay parking lot taxes by $30 million in expected gross revenues, using that money to offset cancelling the intersection speed/red light camera program that Mayor Gray proposed as a revenue item in the FY 2013 budget.
By Liane Scott, on April 19th, 2012 
Empower DC's Tax Day Delegation, storming the gates of power at the Wilson Building.
As activists, we love to participate in demonstrations and marches, especially when they’re in a good cause and there are so many good causes. But it’s also nice to step it up a notch and take specific demands to the people in power. It’s a quieter, less showy form of activism, but necessary and effective in its own way. On April 17, 2012 (tax day), Empower DC along with representatives from the Fair Budget Coalition, Jobs With Justice and DC for Democracy went to the Wilson Building to talk to our council members about how they’re spending our taxes. Our first visit was to the hearing room, where the Committee of the Whole was meeting. We’d brought along an information packet that included our take on the shortage of affordable housing in the city , the DC public school budget and the childcare subsidy program. All these issues the council and the mayor influence through policy, legislation and funding. Council members and their staff (very important cogs in the legislative apparatus) are usually pretty knowledgeable when it comes to how much money is being put into or taken out of the programs that many low- and moderate-income DC residents depend on, but they’re not so knowledgeable when asked how cutting those programs will impact DC residents. That’s why activists, organizers and community members who are impacted need to educate our elected officials.
Here’s an audio snippet of one of our office visits. The position of the recording device was not ideal, so some of the audio is a little hard to understand but it’s well worth the entire 3-minutes. [haiku url=”http://www.grassrootsmediaproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Tax-Day-Delegation.mp3″ title=”Tax Day Delegation” style=”color: #003300]
Although Empower DC child care organizer Sequnely Gray, who is featured in the above audio, expressing her concerns passionately about the plight of DC’s homeless families, she was there primarily to discuss the child care subsidy program. There is so much overlap between the issues that local progressives care about, it doesn’t always make sense to try to tease them apart. The DC residents who are most impacted by this year’s round of budget cuts don’t even have the option. The parent who needs the child care subsidy so he or she can work is at risks losing their job without it. Without a job, what happens to the money for rent or for food? When one program fails you, the others become all the more necessary. As activists and organizers it’s important that we understand all of the programs that are critical to the city’s safety net. To that end, I’ve posted below the information that Sequnely put together regarding the subsidized child care program.
Here’s a link to the Demands to Fully Fund the Subsidized Child Care Program below. I hope to post more info regarding programs that will be impacted by the budget in the weeks leading up to the city council’s vote on the 2013 budget at the end of May. Empower DC is planning more advocacy days at the at the city council. Stay tuned to this channel for more on that. In the meantime, feel free to download the child care demands and do a little advocacy on your own. Because frankly, DC residents who are also parents can’t work without quality, affordable child care.
By Liane Scott, on April 16th, 2012 
Today is emancipation day here in the District of Columbia. It marks the day when the enslaved residents of the District of Columbia were granted their freedom. The Civil War was already underway when President Lincoln signed the Compensated Emancipation Act for the release of certain persons held to service or labor in the District of Columbia. That was nine months before he signed the Emancipation Proclamation. I’ve always found it ironic that enslaved African-Americans in the District of Columbia were the first in the nation to receive their freedom, and yet their descendants still don’t have representation in Congress. Go figure. That was the message of a video about Free DC’s Emancipation Day celebration that I produced three years ago, which I’ve posted below.
It also seems meaningful that these reminders of our second-class status here in the District of Columbia should come just before tax day. We pay taxes here in the District despite the fact that we don’t have representation in Congress. We do have city representatives. The mayor, members of the city council and the advisory neighborhood commissions are all elected by DC residents but do they really represent our wishes? Mayor Gray’s proposed budget would cut over $20 million from the city’ s affordable housing programs, despite the fact that the citizens at Mayor Gray’s One City Citizens Summit put the need for affordable housing at the top of their list of priorities that District government should address. Mayor Gray also wants to cut $5.7 million from the subsidized child care program. Certainly this does not represent the wishes of the more than 300 parents who will lose their vouchers and possibly their jobs as well, because as any good parent of young children knows, you can’t work and raise your children without affordable and preferably quality child care. The mayor’s cuts to school budgets will mean increased class sizes, loss of librarians, special education coordinators and other “non-mandatory” staff. Whose wishes do these cuts represent? Are DC students complaining about librarians and counselors? I don’t think so. Low and moderate income residents pay 7 – 10% of their income in taxes. A family of 4 earning $26,300 a year pays $2,630 in taxes. Relatively speaking, that’s a HUGE chunk of money.
Which is why Empower DC members will be engaging in the following action:
Tax Day Delegation to Fight Budget Cuts Tuesday April 17, 2012 Meet on the steps of the Wilson Building @ 10:30 AM. We will visit our council members and give them the following message– Dear City Council: WE PAY TAXES Don’t SCREW US in the Budget! Put My Tax Dollars Towards Affordable Housing, Childcare & Education!
For more information about tomorrow’s Tax Day Delegation contact Daniel@empowerdc.org or call 202-234-9119 ext. 104.
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