Proposed federal bill would cut DC budget by roughly $1 billion, city officials say
WASHINGTON () — D.C. lawmakers are speaking out against a proposed GOP spending bill they say would require the District to revert to its budget from last fiscal year, slashing nearly $1.1 billion in funds slated for law enforcement, schools and more.
The temporary spending bill – also known as a continuing resolution (CR) – is a bill to prevent a government shutdown that forces all federal agencies to operate under their 2024 budgets. Typically, D.C. can continue operating under its approved budget for FY25, but this specific proposed budget does not exempt the District.
Authorities search for Virginia woman reported missing in Dominican Republic
At a press conference Monday, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser said the CR would force D.C. to immediately cut the $1 billion from its local budget.
City Administrator Kevin Donohue said if the CR passes, there would likely be a hiring freeze and they would need to look at laying off people.
'If Congress goes through with this action, it will work against a priority that President Trump and I share … to make Washington, D.C. the best, most beautiful city in the world,' Bowser said.
Congresswoman Eleanor Horton called the move 'fiscal sabotage.'
'Congress should keep its hands off D.C. D.C. is not a federal agency,' she said.
FCPS middle schooler sets record for solving 50 puzzle cubes in under 7 minutes
Council Chair Phil Mendelson said the Council was unified in their concern about the resolution because of its 'adverse effect' on the District.
He emphasized that these are D.C. taxpayers' dollars that would be cut – not federal dollars.
Request to Congress Regarding District of Columbia Budget and Shutdown AuthorityDownload
In a post , Mendelson wrote, 'It is nonsensical. The effect of what they're trying to do would be to cut back spending by police … as well as agencies that deal with the cleanliness of the city, public education and so forth. They would realize no savings from this, because these are not federal dollars.'
Ward 2 Councilmember Brooke Pinto shared similar sentiments in another post . She said the CR would undo the legally passed budget that was certified last summer and approved by Congress.
Measles case confirmed in Maryland, sparking exposure concerns at Dulles International Airport
In practice, police officers, firefighters, teachers and other essential government workers would be laid off or furloughed.
'This would be dire for our city and we all must do everything we can to ensure this does not pass,' Pinto stated.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
CBS News
31 minutes ago
- CBS News
Bay Area solar owners could see tax credits slashed under Trump's spending bill
The budget bill being debated in Congress could have serious implications for a lot of industries, but some are saying it could be a disaster for the residential solar industry. Solar companies are already hurting from reductions in government subsidies, but a threat to eliminate the federal solar tax credit could be putting the industry on the verge of collapse. Solar power itself is a proven technology with a lot of benefits to offer as a clean, renewable source of energy. But right now, a lot of energy is going into just keeping the business alive. "I think the industry is going to go through some very hard times," said Severin Borenstein, faculty director at UC Berkeley's Haas Energy Institute. He said rooftop solar has gone through a lot of changes in the last few years, with the State reducing how much solar system owners are credited for the energy they produce. But lately things have been improving. "2024 was back to 2021 levels, so they had really recovered from a drop," said Borenstein. "But now, with what the Trump administration is doing, I think there's a lot of concern. There were already a lot of rooftop solar companies that had pretty tenuous financing and were having a hard time. And I think this is pushing some of them over the edge." He was talking about a Republican effort in the budget bill to eliminate the 30 percent federal tax credit given to people who install solar systems on their homes. That, along with the tariffs being imposed by President Trump, has solar industry insiders calling foul. "It's really sad to see solar energy being caught in partisan crosshairs," said Brad Heavner, executive director of the California Solar and Storage Association. "The sun is not Republican or Democrat. The need for more electricity is not Democrat or Republican. We need more energy in America and Congress has a role to play in making that happen." But right now, the role Congress is playing is to restrict rooftop solar, along with other renewable energies, in favor of older sources like fossil fuels and coal. The effect has already been devastating, with solar companies going bankrupt across the country. On Monday, solar giant Sunnova Energy filed for protection and last week, Solar Mosaic, a major lender in the business, also went belly up. But Gordon Johnson, founder of a research firm studying the industry, said the companies may have brought it on themselves simply by the way they did business. He said some misrepresented their costs to lenders in what he compared to a Ponzi Scheme. "The solar industry in the US is in a state of significant disarray. And it's not something that could not have been predicted," said Johnson. "They perpetually issue debt. These companies are always issuing debt. As soon as they can't issue debt, and they can't plug that hole of the actual cost of the system versus what they show Wall Street, they quickly go bankrupt." Higher interest rates and equipment cost inflation have also figured into the mix. One analysis found that, nationwide, more than $14 billion in clean energy and electric vehicles have been cancelled or delayed as a result. The prospects for the industry aren't good right now, but Joe Osha, an analyst for investment banker Guggenheim Securities, said rooftop solar should not be confused with the overall solar energy market. "In megawatt terms, I can tell you that the residential solar business, as visible as it is, is only a tiny fraction of the solar generation that gets added into this country each year," said Osha. "The vast majority of it are these large utility-scale solar farms. I don't see any scenario under which that utility-scale solar business collapses." That leaves residential solar twisting in the political wind. And experts are saying small companies that have been the backbone of California's solar revolution will have a hard time staying in business.
Yahoo
40 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Challenge to Tampa Bay Senate seat revisits how it was created in 2022
The federal courthouse in Tampa on June 11, 2025. (Photo by Mitch Perry/Florida Phoenix) Day Three of the federal lawsuit alleging that a Tampa Bay area state Senate district was racially gerrymandered focused in part on how that district was created in 2022. The suit, filed by the ACLU of Florida and the Civil Rights & Racial Justice Clinic at New York University on behalf of three residents of Tampa and St. Petersburg, alleges the Legislature packed Black voters into District 16 to reduce their influence in nearby District 18, in violation of their equal-protection rights. Democrat Darryl Rouson serves in SD 16, while Republican Nick DiCeglie is the incumbent in SD 18. The defendants are Senate President Ben Albritton and Florida Secretary of State Cord Byrd, and their attorneys began their defense on Wednesday, bringing Jay Ferrin back to the witness stand in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida in Tampa. Ferrin is now a senior adviser to the Florida Senate, but he served as staff director of the Florida Senate Committee on Reapportionment in the fall of 2021, when the districts lines were created. He discussed how he and his staff went about drawing up the Senate districts that year and the guidelines they followed. The reapportionment process beginning that fall was taking place under the guidance of Ray Rodrigues, who chaired the Senate Reapportionment Committee. Defense attorneys aired several Florida Channel video excerpts on Wednesday showing Rodrigues explaining how 'hard lessons were learned' following the Florida Supreme Court's decision in 2015 to throw out the GOP-controlled Legislature's maps after deeming them unlawful under the Fair Districts constitutional amendments adopted by voters in 2010. Rodrigues was insistent that he wanted the 2022 Legislature to conduct itself in such a fashion that the courts would not reject the maps lawmakers would produce. 'This map will withstand a court challenge,' Rodrigues declared on the floor of the Senate. That's what the trial taking place this week will ultimately determine. Ferrin testified that, after his staff created other Senate districts in the Tampa Bay area, there remained about 100,000 residents in Pinellas County who would have to be inserted into another Senate district. (With the population of Florida in 2021 at 21.5 million people, Ferrin said, his staff were tasked to draw approximately 538,438 voters into each of the 40 Senate districts). The resultant SD 16, which encompasses parts of St. Petersburg and Hillsborough County, is similar to the 'benchmark' map created in 2015 that was then known as Senate District 19. Ferrin denied that he was instructed to maintain that same configuration. He also said that under the rules promulgated by Rodrigues, he and his fellow staffers could speak about any new maps only with either the Senate's general counsel or other Senate members — and not the general public. He was not supposed to review public submissions. Florida senators were allowed to propose amendments during the reapportionment process, to add their own maps. Rodrigues and Democratic Sen. Audrey Gibson had filed such amendments, Ferrin said, but no senator had asked him to directly to create any Senate maps. ACLU attorney Nicholas Warren said at the beginning of the morning that he had sought to depose Rodrigues and fellow Republican and committee member Danny Burgess before the trial, but both had asserted legislative privilege, which shields them having to testify in certain lawsuits. In the afternoon, the defense called two expert witnesses who criticized the expert witness testimony and voting analysis that came from the plaintiffs on Tuesday. Steven Voss is a political science professor at the University of Kentucky. When asked to break down the political partisanship of the Tampa Bay area, he included four counties that make up the Tampa Bay metropolitan statistical area — Hillsborough, Pinellas, Polk and Hernando. Based on population, he said, five Senate districts could be folded into the area, and that three historically were reliably Republican while two would favor Democrats. Currently, that breakdown is four Republican districts and one Democratic — with Senate District 14, which Voss said historically favored Democrats, going to the GOP in 2022. Voss took aim at the alternative voting maps produced for the ACLU by Penn State University professor of statistics Cory McCartan. Those maps showed that a district could have been fairly drawn up exclusively in Hillsborough County while still protecting Tier-1 standards there and in Pinellas County. (That involves the Florida Constitution's Fair District Amendment, which says that districts shall not be drawn with the intent or result of denying or abridging the equal opportunity of racial or language minorities to participate in the political process or diminish their ability to elect representatives of their choice). Voss said that the result of McCartan's work was that he was 'cracking and packing' voters in his maps to ultimately help Democrats at the voting booth. Sean Trende, senior elections analyst for RealClearPolitics, also testified for the defense. He praised the composition of the Senate maps passed by the Legislature in 2022, saying it was 'pretty incompetent racial gerrymandering, if that's what's going on.' The trial is expected to conclude on Thursday. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Yahoo
40 minutes ago
- Yahoo
GOP lawmaker flips script on Newsom, Bass by defining anti-ICE riots with 1 word
EXCLUSIVE: GOP Rep. Darrell Issa is blasting elected Democrat officials in his home state of California over their response to the anti-ICE riots in Los Angeles after he called for a congressional investigation into the response time of local law enforcement. "These are the same people that tell us, you know, Biden was fine, he was on the top of his game," Issa said about Democrat narratives responding to the riots that have been unfolding in Los Angeles since Friday. "So their credibility goes with what you see versus what they say. I can't think of a better example of why you shouldn't believe or vote for people in that party as long as they're willing to literally lie to your face on what you're seeing with your own eyes." Democrats across the country, from California to Washington, D.C., have downplayed the rioting and focused on the claim that the majority of the anti-ICE displays have been "peaceful." Tom Cotton Pushes New Crackdown On Pro-immigration Rioters In Los Angeles, Citing Ice Assaults Additionally, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and other Democrats have blamed President Donald Trump's mobilizing the National Guard for making the situation worse. Read On The Fox News App Issa, who represents California's 48th Congressional District, took issue with that narrative. "First of all, there was damage, both vandalism and actual destruction done before Trump got involved, and that's the reason he got involved, but there's another thing that some people miss," Issa told Fox News Digital. "When ICE agents called for police support when they were being assaulted, they hunkered down and waited two hours before police responded because police couldn't get authority to react. So that alone gave a reason for the president to bring in additional federalized troops to protect the ICE agents." On Tuesday, Fox News Digital exclusively reported Issa's call for an investigation into the Department of Homeland Security's claim that the LAPD took two hours to respond to assist ICE agents being assaulted on Friday night. The LAPD, in a Sunday press conference, denied that allegation and said it took 40 minutes to respond due to traffic. Harris Ripped For 'Appalling' La Ice Raids Statement Placing Blame On Trump: 'The Country Dodged A Bullet' "Understand that we have over 10 million people who were let into this country, and tens of thousands of them are serious criminal aliens," Issa said. "There were warrants. There were orders to deport. There are reasons that we've got to go after many of these people in cities around the country. If ICE agents can't be protected or won't be protected by people like the mayor and my governor, then the president's going to have to continue to do this, eventually create escorts for ICE agents." Issa told Fox News Digital that Trump is doing a "great job" in his response to the unrest in Los Angeles. "One thing that I'm very happy about is, I know that by taking strong action here, he's keeping it from occurring in other cities around the country, because what you don't want is what ultimately happened in 2020 where we saw it happening not just in one city but in city after city where more than two dozen people died and billions of dollars of damage occurred because it wasn't handled quickly enough, and we've learned from that." Issa told Fox News Digital that he finds it curious why Democrats have used the word "insurrection" to describe the Jan. 6th riots that lasted hours but have not used the term to describe what has unfolded in Los Angeles over several days. "We heard the word 'insurrection' for a couple of years nonstop, and now in Los Angeles, when people are directly assaulting property and law enforcement, that's the very definition of insurrection; and particularly when they're doing it on behalf of people who are sitting in jails because they were arrested for crimes, not just for entering the country illegally but for actual felonies," Issa said. "And it's sort of amazing to believe that high-ranking elected officials like Gov. Newsom would actually try to defend any of that action. And yet they're doing it." Issa went on to say that Newsom's response to the riots "might have worked in the era of print or maybe even the era of radio" but that video evidence of rioting from the scene makes his position untenable. "Television and podcasts and everyone having a cellphone, those images are going to be what the American people [is going to] see when he tries to pretend that he was a good governor," Issa said. "They're going to see a failure to do his job and an absolute resistance against those who came in to do it for him." Fox News Digital reached out to the offices of Newsom and Bass for comment. "Trump is pulling a military dragnet all across Los Angeles, well beyond his stated intent to just go after violent and serious criminals," Newsom said on Tuesday night. "His agents are arresting dishwashers, gardeners, day laborers and seamstresses. That's just weakness. Weakness masquerading as strength. Donald Trump's government isn't protecting our communities. They're traumatizing our communities. And that seems to be the entire point." "When Donald Trump sought blanket authority to commandeer the National Guard, he made that order apply to every state in this nation. This is about all of us. This is about you. California may be first, but it clearly will not end here. Other states are next. Democracy is next. Democracy is under assault before our eyes. This moment we have feared has arrived. He's taking a wrecking ball, a wrecking ball to our Founding Fathers' historic project."Original article source: GOP lawmaker flips script on Newsom, Bass by defining anti-ICE riots with 1 word
