by Robert E. Wright
The American Institute for Economic Research
The House of Representatives has passed a bill, now before the Senate, that would make much of Washington, DC a new state, confusingly called the “State of Washington, Douglass Commonwealth.” If passed into law, it would also reduce the federal district mandated by the Constitution to the Mall area surrounding the White House, Capitol building, and monuments.
Ostensibly, DC statehood is designed to stop the “historic injustice” of DC residents being subject to federal taxation but not represented by voting members of Congress. Calling that an injustice is a stretch because no American is forced to live in DC and plenty of rural Americans residing in Democrat-controlled states have no effective say on the federal fisc either. Moreover, since ratification of the 23rd Amendment in 1961, DC residents do get a say in the election of POTUS. DC gets three votes in the Electoral College, which is as many as the states of Alaska, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming get.