As reported in the Feb. 13 Metro article “Senate blocks D.C. tax policy,” the Senate is preventing D.C. from opting out of certain provisions of federal tax cuts. The article noted that the District’s opt-out is comparable to action taken by “numerous states,” but Congress has attempted to block such action only in the District because “Congress has the constitutional power to overturn local laws.”
In fact, Framers gave the federal government very limited authority over local issues in the nation’s capital, which is contained in Article I, Section 8, Clause 17 of the Constitution. Though that provision gives Congress “exclusive” authority over the District, its purpose was quite narrow; it was to avoid the humiliation suffered by the Continental Congress during the Pennsylvania Mutiny of June 21, 1783.
At that time, a group of veterans confronted members of Congress demanding six months of back pay. When city and state officials declined to defend the Congress from the veterans, Congress fled Philadelphia for Princeton, New Jersey. As James Madison explained in Federalist No. 43, the Framers responded by giving Congress the constitutional authority to protect itself and the seat of the national government without being forced to rely on help from local or state governments. Crucially, Madison also specifically noted that “a municipal legislature for local purposes, derived from their own suffrages, will of course be allowed” by local residents of the capital city.
The Supreme Court has made clear that the Framers’ original intent should control the Constitution’s meaning. Given the Framers’ limited intent concerning Congress’s authority over the District, Congress should not overturn D.C. policy that has nothing to do with protecting the safety of Congress and the seat of the national government.
Walter Smith, Washington
The writer is a former special deputy attorney general for the District of Columbia.
Pay federal workers
As noted in the Feb. 14 front-page article “DHS runs out of cash amid impasse,” thousands of DHS employees are now working without pay, including employees of the Transportation Security Administration, Federal Emergency Management Agency and Coast Guard. Meanwhile, most of Congress is out of town on a paid break.
If the hard-working personnel who protect our safety can labor without pay, members of Congress should also go without pay until they come up with a compromise solution. And to give the measure some teeth, there should be a simultaneous moratorium on political contributions to force the members of Congress to focus on the jobs that taxpayers are paying them to do.
Philip Shutler, Annandale
The correct definition of ‘regressive’
The Feb. 19 news article “Fed researchers should be punished, Trump adviser says” reported U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer saying that the administration’s tariffs aren’t regressive because “most consumption in America is done by the wealthiest people.” That’s nonsense. Whether a tax is regressive depends not on who pays more of it in absolute amounts but on who pays more as a percentage of their income.
Sure, the rich consume more than the poor, but they tend to consume a smaller percentage of their income than the poor, and they have a higher percentage left over that they can save and invest.
Jonathan R. Siegel, Chevy Chase
Ukraine didn’t give up ‘its’ weapons
Regarding George F. Will’s Feb. 15 op-ed, “Consign the Stalinist in the Kremlin to a grim future”:
There is a commonly held misperception that Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons in exchange for its independence. Those weapons belonged to the USSR and then Russia and were under the control of Russia’s Strategic Rocket Forces. Just like the U.S. government controls all U.S. nuclear weapons, rather than the states where the weapons are deployed.
The tragedy is that the West has provided Ukraine only enough weapons and related systems to produce a stalemate with Russia. And reports of Moscow proposing huge economic deals with the U.S. as incentives for reaching an end to the war reinforce Will’s cynicism about the character of this White House.
Harlan Ullman, Washington
The writer is a senior adviser at the Atlantic Council.
Voters meet reality
The Feb. 16 editorial “Mamdani meets economic reality” could have and should have been written before Zohran Mamdani’s election as New York’s mayor. There should be a subtitle for this editorial: “Voters meet the reality of their choice.”
Steve Henry, Springfield
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