Facing widespread layoffs from the city’s biggest employer and what amounts to a billion-dollar budget cut over the next six months, residents of the District of Columbia expressed frustration at a Capitol Hill rally on Thursday morning, declaring themselves denizens of a city under siege.
A Republican spending bill to fund the federal government through Sept. 30 would inflict major fiscal pain on the city where much of that government resides.
“This’ll just be an absolute economic disaster,” said Paul Strauss, one of the district’s nonvoting “shadow” senators, at a protest in the Senate office building attended by hundreds of defiant district residents.
The spending bill, which must pass the Senate by Friday to avoid a federal government shutdown, would essentially strip the district’s ability to spend more than $1 billion in revenue it already has on hand. That would include more than $300 million from the city’s education system, according to district officials.
“My school would probably go out of business,” said Mateo Roberts, 11.
He was one of many students in the district’s public schools, which had the day off for parent-teacher conferences, who joined their parents to protest the Republican spending plan. Senate Democrats have said they can’t support the House measure and have introduced a shorter-term spending bill that wouldn’t touch the district’s budget.
Sitting in the towering atrium of the Hart Senate Office Building, the students made signs with crayons and colored markers in an attempt to appeal to senators — none of whom represent them. One read: “You cut my dad’s job and now you want to cut my school,” punctuated by four sad faces.