Political Quotes

“I have put in a unique remedy for a catastrophic financial crisis in the District of Columbia. Questions have been raised about it. I think I and the people I represent are due the courtesy of a moratorium on off-the-cuff conclusions about the bill until they are fully briefed. The reasons, of course, for my bill, for a tax cut for the District, lie in the unique disadvantages of the city and the unique remedy it will take to solve them. We lost more residents in the first half of the 1990's than we did in the entire 1980's. Perhaps we share that in common with other cities, but virtually nothing else. Uniquely, we have no way to recoup revenue when we lose people. Leon Panetta, a personal friend and a friend of the District, spoke on television yesterday about my bill. In virtually every respect he was way off the mark. For example, Leon said congresspeople would be able to get this tax cut. They do not pay D.C. income taxes. The law requires them to be citizens of their own States. Imagine the pain in my District when they heard opposition to a tax cut to the District because it would be unfair to other cities. I never would have put the tax cut bill in in the first place if we had a State like other cities. We are the only city in the United States which has State responsibilities and State costs, and no State. Seventy-five percent of the money that big cities get, they get from external sources, such as State aid.”