85 Percent of the City Can’t Be Wrong: Tax the Rich, Don’t Hurt the Poor

“There are a lot of people like me in the city who are glad to pay a higher rate of tax, who can well afford it if it will help people who are at the bottom,” said Roger Kuhn, a high-income District resident, in testimony before the D.C. Council on Monday.

Mayor Vincent Gray’s budget proposal calls for a slight (8.5 to 8.9 percent) tax increase on household income in excess of $200,000. “I urge you not only to support the mayor’s tax increase,” Kuhn said to councilmembers, “but to increase that tax increase which I think is really too small.”

Citing a recent poll conducted by Hart Research Associates, Sunday’s Washington Post noted, “An overwhelming majority of District voters think the city’s highest priority should be maintaining public services, not holding the line on taxes.”

The poll, which was commissioned by the DC Fiscal Policy Institute, found that 85 percent of District residents support increasing taxes on the District’s highest income earners.

Burke Stansbury, a member of Save Our Safety Net and Resource Generation, also testified Monday. “[I’m] speaking as one of the residents in this city that would be affected by higher taxes on high-income families.”

Stansbury read a letter which high-income residents are signing on to. “Since 2009, more than $100 million have been cut from safety net programs in D.C. And another $130 million stand to be cut if Mayor Gray’s proposed budget is passed.

“In a city where nearly one in ten residents is unemployed and one in five residents lives in poverty, raiding the safety net can have catastrophic effects for many of our neighbors and negatively impact the quality of life for the city as a whole.”

Kuhn, who volunteers with Bread for the City, said, “I see homeless people waiting and hoping to get into a shelter… I see single moms who need day care so they can keep their jobs… People scraping by or not even that.”

“Cutting funding for support of the programs these people depend on, I have to say frankly, appalls me. Appalls me. And there’s no reason for it. There are lots of people like me who are well enough off to afford higher taxes.”

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