Subject: MEDIA ADVISORY: Lunch Hour Rally on May 16 for Fair DC Budget & Taxes
Date: Mon, 15 May 2000 12:06:40 -0700 (PDT)
From: DC Statehood Green News <dcsgpnews@yahoo.com>
To: dcsgpnews@yahoo.com

DC Statehood Green Party
MEDIA ADVISORY
[We urge all DC Statehood Green Party members and friends to participate!]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Monday, May 15, 2000

Contact: David Schwartzman, (202) 829-9063

LUNCH-HOUR RALLY FOR A FAIR DC BUDGET, MAY 16

RALLY: noon, Tuesday, May 16, 2000, on the sidewalk in front of One Judiciary Square, 441 4th Street NW, Washington, DC
 

WASHINGTON, DC -- The DC Statehood Green Party (DCSGP) will hold a rally in front of the District government building at One Judiciary Square on Tuesday, May 16 in an effort to urge DC City Council and Mayor Anthony Williams to pass a humane tax system and budget that will improve schools, give tax relief to the working poor, and expand DC's gutted safety net, as they finalize the budget this week.

The lunch-hour rally will take place at noon, and is being organized by the DCSGP tax and budget committee under the leadership of David Schwartzman, Howard University professor, with the help of Arturo Griffiths of the DC Coalition for Housing Justice.

DCSGP believes that the District of Columbia has the tax base to fund essential needs.  The demands of the rally include:

According to Schwartzman, "While our Mayor and Council squabble about our budget, they and Control Board
chair Alice Rivlin continue to assert that we lack the tax base to improve funding for schools and simultaneously pass a District Earned Income Tax credit and expand our gutted safety net. We assert the contrary."

DCSGP's recommendations for a humane budget, based on the above demands, address the fact that the DC's
wealthiest have a multibillion dollar taxable income while paying lower individual local tax rates than low and middle income residents (Source: Citizens for Tax Justice).

The proposals have been endorsed by the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless, Center for Community Change, Gray Panthers of Metropolitan Washington,Metro DC Committee of Correspondence, Project South, Stand for Our Neighbors, and many local activists.

For details and documentation, see David Schwartzman's testimony before the Finance & Revenue Committee, DC
City Council, on pending tax legislation, at the DCSGP website: www.dcstatehoodgreen.org.

END