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.