Join us today at 5pm and process the budget

In 1972, guaranteed income and welfare rights activist Johnnie Tillmon wrote in Ms. Magazine “We’ve been raised to expect to work, all our lives, for nothing. Because we are the worst-educated, the least-skilled and the lowest-paid people there are. Because we have to be almost totally responsible for our children. Because we are regarded by everybody as dependents. That’s why we are on welfare. And that’s why we stay on it.”

Nearly 50 years later, D.C.’s Black and Brown women like Johnnie Tillmon might agree this statement remains true. 34% of the city’s single mothers live in poverty, most of them Black and Brown, caring for the city’s children, theirs and/or others. Under Mayor Bowser’s 2025 budget plan, if not thwarted, their plight will likely worsen.

The DCGIC Agenda 

The DC Guaranteed Income Coalition is built upon the ideals of liberation and economic justice for racial and other marginalized identities.  Advancing a solidarity economy and an abundance platform through unrestricted cash that lifts everyone above the poverty line is our noble mission. 

Pitting human needs against one another in a budget is antithetical to our values of justice and counterproductive to the broader, holistic agenda. Thus, it is with great pain that we witness the mayor’s proposed cuts to the earned income tax credit, child-care subsidy, and D.C.’s Access to Justice legal services programs, among others. We note the mayor’s proposal to maintain the Strong Families Strong Futures unconditional direct cash program, an initiative for which this Coalition fought for funding as a guaranteed income pilot. Achieved through partnership with the inaugural champion of guaranteed income in DC, Councilmember Kenyon McDuffie, this is an important gain in the fight against poverty. But maintaining this pilot program while eroding the social safety net of programs that support DC’s economically marginalized Black and Brown women tokenizes it.  

“From a just standpoint, one’s human existence should entitle them to belonging and deservedness. Here’s a lesson learned from the past: if we don’t have a concept of anti-racism, anti-sexism, and proactive inclusion, the default will be economic rights that are, by design management and implementation, exclusionary.” Thus, Darrick Hamilton summarized our compass on the Moral Agenda for Economic Rights. (February 27, 2023).

While asserting that her budget is one of “shared sacrifice,” the Mayor proposes to invest millions of dollars in downtown DC’s rebirth, including a deal for the city’s professional basketball arena. This, while proposing cuts to the pay equity fund and the earned come program, which benefit the mostly Black and Brown women who provide care to our city’s children. This approach, additionally, stifles the momentum for our long-term goal of guaranteed income for those predominantly Black and Brown women-led households. It does so by freezing out the historic chance to lift up those women through the permanent District Child Tax Credit proposal, which was authored by Ward 5 Councilmember Zachary Parker. 

Shared sacrifice is the tagline for the Mayor’s proposal. By contrast, the 2025 budget proposal is more akin to what economists theorize is “manufactured scarcity” not “just the story of COVID tests, or the pandemic, or the economy: It’s the story of America today.” It’s the story our Mayor is telling us. 

We know better.  We must resist it. We live in the seat of government with the richest economy in human history – anything and everything is possible if our agenda is an abundance agenda that invests more in people, than in sports arenas. The DC Guaranteed Income Coalition’s position is similar to this articulation of an abundance agenda:  Our agenda seeks to “harness the … emphasis on human welfare” and to “take innovation as seriously as it takes affordability,” as Ezra Klein wrote.

This is the abundance agenda we embrace.

Mayor Bowser did not propose income tax increases, property tax increases, or commercial property tax raises. Instead, the Mayor has proposed cuts that amount to a tax on those who can least afford it. These burdens on our neighbors should offend and shock the conscience, but that is the Mayor’s proposed path forward. It derives from a platform of scarcity, and these are policies of scarcity. In the face of them, we must fight for all of the programs that will advance our society. We must remember “how much good we can do by simply taking on the [policies] that are the enemies of our abundance agenda.

As advocates for progress, we eagerly encourage the markup of the District Child Tax Credit Amendment Act of 2023 by the Business and Economic Development committee and inclusion in the Budget Support Act. We envision a future that prioritizes funding for current and future generations. The DCTC, as written, supports funding for 2026, buying more time to find the funds for it. 

Fight for it all. Fight for our entire human needs agenda!

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2024/04/03/dc-budget-bowser-cuts-tax-hikes/