Move to the nation’s capital, the District of Columbia!
Yes, you’ll pay some of the highest income taxes in the nation (8.5% over $60,000), and a general sales tax of 6% (soon a 7% general rate, and already 10% on restaurants and alcohol). True, you might look at the city’s complete incompetence in once again being unable to clear even the most important roads on snow days after a major but not historically significant storm. But consider what else the district offers you:
• A 911 call center that regularly doesn’t answer your call, regularly sends first responders to the wrong address, and whose leadership has been staffed by Mayor Muriel Bowser‘s most incompetent political allies.
• City services that decide on a whim whether they want to do their job. Which is to say, whether they want to pick up your trash or just leave it in an alley, and then attempt to fine you for the privilege of their laziness. Oh, and bestow you with trash cans that are eaten through by the city’s infestation of rat colonies, then regularly stolen (and a city that then tries to charge you to replace what was stolen while making no effort to catch the thief).
• Absurd spending on Medicaid, homelessness (which is somehow still rampant in the city), and food assistance (regular visits to a grocery or corner store will show many recipients are able-bodied young men and women). An extraordinary 35% to 38% of the city budget goes to welfare.
• A crime rate that, though declining thanks to U.S. Attorney for DC Jeanine Pirro’s (Pirro is a very great improvement on her predecessor) increase in prosecutions and associated mobilization of police morale and operations, remains far too high. Forget about porch pirate investigations, even though the offenders are regularly caught on doorbell cameras and are well known to police.
• Gun control policies that apparently do very little to stop armed criminality but deliberately make it laborious for law-abiding citizens to obtain a firearms license or, God forbid, a concealed carry permit.
• Regulations that are enforced subjectively or introduced to protect interests close to the city administration. Uber’s aggressive lobbying to kill off its cheaper competitor, Empower, offers a good example of the second dynamic.
• Some of the very highest child care, entertainment, transit, and other costs in the nation. And an array of hidden charges, especially by restaurants, as they seek to remain afloat amid idiotic regulations passed by the city council (most servers also hate these regulations).
On second thoughts, stay where you are. Or, like many former district residents, move to the relative paradise suburb of Alexandria. Put simply, district residents are very poorly served by too many city civil servants and elected officials.
To be fair, there is little incentive for these public employees to do better. After all, city residents have shown a remarkable penchant for continually electing the most left-wing council members. That means folks such as Trayon White, Brianne Nadeau, and Charles Allen, who are either corrupt or so far-left in their views that they make New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani look moderate. This self-flagellating tendency seems to be a function of two factors.
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First, the city’s very generous welfare state, which incentivizes the politics of dependency. And second, the large number of affluent, well-educated residents who value public virtue signaling above and beyond their interest in better local government. Don’t dare admit you’re a conservative in the district (actually do, the ensuing reactions — and political debates — are quite amusing).
Top line: Washington, D.C., is a great city for its history and culture. And a very bad city for government.