Taxation Without Representation

Floor Speech

Mr. Speaker, April 16 marks Emancipation Day in the District of Columbia, when the slaves who lived in the District of Columbia were emancipated.

I come to the floor this week to discuss a different kind of emancipation. Today, I begin, as the Nation began, with taxes without representation. If I were to ask you who pays the highest taxes per capita in the United States of America, who would you say? What jurisdiction would you say? New York? Connecticut? Arizona? Texas?

It would be the citizens of the Nation's Capital who support the Nation without representation in the Congress of the United States, the 650,000 citizens of the Nation's Capital. That is why you see D.C. license plates that say, ``Taxation Without Representation.'' That was not the idea of the D.C. government. It was a citizen who came forward to suggest that this should be what was on our license plates.

So, April 16--we in the District commemorate Emancipation Day every year because we have the distinction of being the first jurisdiction in the United States where the slaves were emancipated 9 months before they were emancipated elsewhere. The irony is, we are now the last jurisdiction where citizens of every background do not enjoy equal rights. All other Americans have at least one voting Representative and two Senators. District of Columbia citizens have no vote on this House floor and no Senators.

All other Americans govern themselves without interference from the Congress. The District of Columbia must abide the nullification of local laws if the Congress sees fit. All other Americans enjoy total control of their own taxpayer funds. The District budget, approved by and raised by District officials, must be approved in this House and in the Senate by people who had nothing to do with raising those funds.

All other Americans pass any constitutional local law they see fit. All local laws of the District of Columbia must lay over here in the House to see whether somebody wants to pop up and overturn them, even if they are constitutional.

What is the difference between the people I represent and the people my colleagues represent? We do not have statehood rights, and that is what any citizen who pays taxes and serves in the armed services for the Nation deserves. We seek statehood, the only way to achieve what we have sought and still seek: budget autonomy, legislative autonomy, freedom from interference into our lives by the Congress of the United States.

The Nation's first principle, the principle that gave rise to revolution, is taxation without representation. How would you feel if the highest per capita taxes were paid by your citizens and they didn't have the same rights as every other citizen?

District residents pay almost $12,000 per capita; the lowest are paid, and I point them out only because they are the lowest, by Mississippi, and their taxes are the lowest. I don't go through all the States because there is not room. But what is your State? New York? $8,737 per person. Compare that to our almost $12,000 per D.C. resident, and New York is a large State. California ranks 10th, $8,162 per capita compared to our $12,000 per capita, my friends, per citizen.

In our country when England decided to impose taxation without representation, the colonies decided they would be colonies no more. They passed a resolution saying, ``No taxes ever have been or can be constitutionally imposed on them'' by their respective legislatures.

Look at this graph; it speaks for itself, it speaks for the residents of the District of Columbia.

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