DC Statehood & Taxation

How much DC residents pay
DC residents pay more in federal taxes per capita than residents of any state in the country, and more in total federal taxes than 20 states combined, despite having a population smaller than every one of those states. This is not a new pattern. DC has topped the per capita list for over a decade, and the gap between DC and the rest of the country has stayed wide the entire time.

What DC residents get, and don’t get, in return
Every dollar DC residents send to the federal government funds the same government, the same military, the same federal programs that every other American’s tax dollars fund. In return, DC residents get a Delegate to the House who can participate in floor debate but cannot cast a vote on final passage, and no senators at all. DC residents fund the federal government at a higher rate than most states and have no voice in how that money gets spent, no vote on the budget it funds, and no vote on the laws that come out of it.

How DC compares to states
Every state’s residents can vote for the senators and representatives who set federal tax policy and control federal spending. DC residents pay into that same system at a higher rate than almost anyone and have no vote on either. States with far larger populations and far more federal representation, some of the country’s biggest and wealthiest states included, pay less in total federal taxes than DC does. Population size does not track with tax contribution here, and neither tracks with representation.

No taxation without representation, in plain terms

DC residents live under “no taxation without representation” in the most literal sense the phrase has ever had. The slogan that justified the American Revolution applies to DC residents today with more force than it applied to most of the original colonists, who were taxed by a Parliament an ocean away. DC residents are taxed by a Congress that meets a few miles from most of their homes, whose members they still cannot vote for or against.