D.C., a
Laboratory for Structural Adjustment (updated
(This is substantially the same as the article in D.C.
Free Press,
But it contains updated information, documentation and other material omitted for the lack of space; DC-IMC is a great resource: http://www.dc.indymedia.org) [MS Word Doc version]
Catastrophic cuts in the District’s “safety net” for our
children, poor, disabled and elderly have occurred in the last few years,
forced by the austerity regime of the Control Board with the unfortunate
compliance of the City Council and Mayor. Mayor Tony Williams was the Chief
Financial Officer (“CFO”) of the unelected Control Board. As CFO he recommended
the hurtful budget cuts in the safety net.
Our mainstream media, projected this new arrival to DC, with significant
financial backing by individuals and organizations associated with regional
corporate interests (the Federal City Council), into the Mayor’s office. "With the city in better financial
shape, Williams said he hopes to begin rebuilding the social services network
for children, seniors and the poor that was devastated by hefty budget cuts in
recent years. 'All of them took a huge cut as we made the policy choices... to
get us out of the financial predicament we faced" (Washington Post
The Control Board
was created by Congress on the pretext of eliminating a large budget deficit.
But the real agenda of this unelected body has been to lubricate the wheels of
finance capital, by promoting privatization, weakening income security for
workers and the poor, increasing economic inequality and the “misery index”,
accelerating gentrification and economic development for corporate interests,
eroding the remaining democratic rights of District residents, in other words,
neoliberal globalization come home. The District became a laboratory for
Structural Adjustment.
The rich grow richer, the poor (and increasingly the
“middle class”) grow poorer. Instead of
“trickle down” economics, we have witnessed an “artesian well” flow of wealth
to the top. This is demonstrated by IRS statistics for District tax payers,
showing the booming incomes of the wealthy, while low/middle income brackets
stagnate or decline. This restructuring of the economy of the Metro DC area is
the local application of neoliberal policies of the transnational banks and
corporations resulting in growing polarization of rich and poor. Neoliberalism
is the theory that the market should be left to function without burdensome
regulation or social constraints, including the social safety net,
environmental and occupational protection, and labor rights. The World Bank and IMF have led the way in
transforming the global economy following the neoliberal agenda. It is no accident that the World Bank is a
sponsor of the Economic Resurgence plan for the District, that a World Bank
economist Darius Mans with a record of implementing privatization in several
developing countries sat on the Control Board, apparently leaving after being
exposed during A16. With a growing lack of affordable housing for most
residents, the construction of luxury apartments and the Convention Center is
highest on the agenda of real estate interests in the District. If unchallenged
by an effective labor community coalition, "economic resurgence" will
benefit the wealthy while driving out the working class of the District.
With the Control
Board gone, the regional corporate agenda will still be imposed on the District
unless the power of a labor community coalition is asserted. This emerging
coalition forced our City Council to oppose the Mayor’s and the Control Board’s
destruction plan for DC General. The DC Statehood Green Party will continue
this struggle to empower our residents, especially our working class majority.
The Reality
While DC’s life expectancy has declined, contrary to national trends, income inequality has increased. One half of our children live below the poverty level, as a result of welfare "reform" and impact of inflation since the 1970s. Infant mortality for African Americans remains at twice the national average. While life expectancy has been increasing nationally in the last 15 years, it has declined in the District. Using the most recent statistics available, life expectancy for DC men is 10 years below the national average, for women 5 years. For Black men in DC, the life expectancy is apparently 58 years or less, for Black women 72. The life expectancy for Black men in the District is lower than for any nation in this hemisphere except for Haiti (Doug Struck and Hamil R. Harris, “Death in the City”, Washington Post 6/29/98; David Brown and Avram Goldstein, "Death Knocks Sooner for D.C.'s Black Men", Washington Post 12/4/97). The District income gap is greater than any state, or virtually all the nation's major cities, and is the underlying cause of the poverty and bad health of so many of our residents (see e.g., James Lardner, “Deadly Disparities”, Washington Post 8/16/98). DC’s ratio of the top fifth to bottom fifth of average income of families with children is 27 to 1, $203,110 to $7,498, compared to the national ratio of 10 to 1. DC’s ratio just a decade ago was 16. The middle fifth of family income, averaging $36,918, has not kept up with inflation (Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, Economic Policy Institute). The same trends have been highlighted in “D.C. Gap Between Rich, Poor Widening Census Data Show A City Polarized On Several Scales”, by D'Vera Cohn and Sarah Cohen, Washington Post, 8/13/01, B01 (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A1585-2001Aug12.html): “The dramatic divisions between the District's haves and have-nots widened over the 1990s, according to new census data that show a growing number of rich and poor even as the middle class is shrinking.” Instead of “trickle down” economics, we have witnessed an “artesian well” flow of wealth to the top. This is also demonstrated by IRS statistics for District tax payers, showing the booming incomes of the wealthy, while low/middle income brackets stagnate or decline. At the same time thanks to Congress and the President, we cannot get our deserved federal payments amounting to at least $1.8 billion per year, and the tax revenue from the income of non-resident workers, some $500 million per year. Note that the World Bank and IMF are exempt from paying over $50 million per year in tax revenue owed to the District.
Human Rights
Violations in the
In 1996, the Human Rights Committee of the United Nations
issued General Comment 25, which held that the status of the residents of the
District to be a flagrant violation of the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in particular, articles 23, 25 and 26 outline each person’s right to housing, food, education, health care and a job at a living wage. For example, Article 25 states: “Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself [herself] and his [her] family, including food, clothing, housing, and medical care and necessary social services...”
The
“The child has a right to the highest standard of health and medical care attainable. States shall place special emphasis on the provision of primary and preventive health care, public health education and the reduction of infant mortality...Every child has a right to a standard of living adequate for his or her physical, mental, spiritual, moral and social development. The child has a right to leisure, play and participation in cultural and artistic activities.”
All of these social and economic rights have been systematically violated as a result of DC budget cutting, implementation of the national welfare reform, and the continued denial of political rights of District residents. For example, Congress continues to forbid the use of local, public and even some private funds for the District's clean needle-exchange program to cut short the HIV/AIDS epidemic which now mainly impacts people of color.
Finally, the continual threat of the reimposition of the death penalty in DC by federal authorities or Congress is contrary to internationally recognized standards of human rights. The violations of these human rights are objectively and profoundly racist since its worst effects are borne by African Americans, Latinos and other people of color, first of all children, but the rights of all DC residents are being violated. The systematic violation of our political, social and economic human rights in the District should not only be a local and national focus of organizational activity but also must be made an international source of extreme embarrassment for the U.S. government. It is high time to make these violations an international issue by exposing the hypocrisy of the President and the State Department, who preach human rights to everyone else on the globe, “protected” of course under its umbrella of military force and economic/political blackmail.
The DC Statehood
Green Party joined by Standup for Democracy have launched a global online
petition to the UN Commission on Human Rights for DC Statehood and Human
Rights. Sign it and spread the news to your friends and relatives!
David Schwartzman, Tax & Budget Coordinator, DCSGP, dwslichen@hotmail.com
Online Petition and
More material on our website: www.dcstatehoodgreen.org