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Dysfunctions Last Updated: Oct 25, 2014 - 8:52:47 AM


The District of Corruption- American Glittering Capital
By Thomas Magstadt, NationofChange October 24, 2014
Oct 25, 2014 - 8:22:03 AM

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Washington, DC, is not like other cities in America. Money is no object. Don’t believe it? Pay a visit there and have a look around, you’ll see your tax dollars at work…

Ever wonder about the “DC” in Washington, DC? When I went to graduate school and later worked in that glittering city, I never gave it much thought. Having returned from a recent visit to the nation’s capital, however, I can’t help but think that some avenging angel tricked the founding fathers into putting these two odd initials – DC – in the name of the place.

Other cities scratch and scramble for monies necessary to maintain decent schools, roads, water and sewer lines, fire and police departments, and the like. But, to repeat, Washington is different. It’s different for one simple reason: Washington is where a lot of your tax dollars – billions, if not trillions – go to die.

Federal tax revenues amounted to $2.7 trillion in 2013. For purposes of comparison, here’s a short list of state tax revenues collected in six states:

New York – $73,6 billion
Texas – $51.7 billion
Pennsylvania $33.9 billion

These are big numbers, but they obviously pale in comparison to the torrent of tax revenue that flows into Washington every year. Small states like Kansas ($7.6 billion), Wyoming ($2.1 billion), and my home state of South Dakota ($1.5 billion) are a drop in the bucket.

If you’ve been to any state capital recently – say, for example, tax-intolerant Topeka, Kansas – you probably noticed how prosperous it looks compared to other towns and cities in the state. No, I’m not picking on Kansas (one of my adopted states): it’s true of virtually every capital in the country – and every country in the world.

Think about what happens to a capital – any capital – when trillions of dollars – not billions, but trillions – flow into the treasury of a government – any government – located there. Now think about the special case of Washington, DC, a place I’ve lately taken to calling the “district of corruption”.   Here are a few facts about DC worth ruminating on:

1) Using per capita GDP as a measure, the Washington metropolitan area (MSA) is the richest urban region in the nation – richer than New York City, San Francisco, Boston, or Seattle; measured by real GDP, Washington comes in fourth, trailing only New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago, and ahead of Houston, Dallas, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Boston, and Atlanta, among all the others.

2)   “The Census Bureau has confirmed that, once again, the Washington region dominates the list of the most affluent places in the United States. Among more than 3,000 counties across the nation, Loudoun County is the richest, with a median household income last of almost $119,000. Maryland’s Howard County and Virginia’s Fairfax, Arlington and Stafford counties also made it into the top 10.” According to the same story in the Washington Post, in 2012 the city of Falls Church, Virginia, had a median income of $121,250; in Fairfax county, it was $106,690. By comparison, the median household income for the US as a whole in 2012 was a mere $51,371; the median income for the 50 states ranged from $71,122 in Maryland to paltry $37,095 in Mississippi.

3)   Meanwhile, according to a Truthout.org report, in DC “intense gentrification has altered the city’s demographic landscape dramatically. Because Washington was America’s first city to have a black majority, it came as a shock to many in 2011 when DC’s black population dropped below 50 percent for the first time in more than 50 years. In the past decade, the district lost nearly 40,000 black residents, many driven out by skyrocketing rents fueled by an influx of mostly white professionals flocking to increasingly gentrified neighborhoods.”

4)   DC is a bonanza for lobbyists and lawyers. Law firms are ubiquitous in DC: one estimate puts the number of lawyers in the DC area at 50,000 (“For a city the size of Washington (just over 500,000 people), this is a very large number.” LegalMatch) Lawyers outnumber lobbyists (this number peaked at 14,493! in 2006), but don’t sell K Street short: spending by lobbies in 2013 totaled $3.24 billion – in other words, over a billion dollars more than the total state taxes Wyoming collected last year).

5) Like deregulation, privatization was a hallmark of the Reagan Revolution. According to the General Services Administration (GSA), federal contracts in Fiscal Year 2010 totaled $284.7 billion, ($294.6 billion in 2009). The Defense Department (DOD) possesses by far the deepest pool of cash for private-sector contracts – in 2012, DOD alone obligated $360 billion ($373.6 in 2011). Nearly all of the biggest private contractors in 2011 were – surprise! – heavily dependent on contracts with the Pentagon and CIA. In 2011, General Dynamics had more than 18,000 government contracted transactions totaling approximately $19.47 billion, mostly with the Navy ($12.9 billion) and the Army ($4.6 billion).

There’s no way of knowing how much of this largesse stays in DC. It’s worth noting, however, that the biggest defense contractor of all – Lockheed Martin Corporation – is headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland. Number 6 on the list – SAIC Inc. (SAI) – has its headquarters in McClean, Virginia, also home to the CIA.

About 122 million Americans pay federal income tax; another 121 million pay some form of federal taxes. Where does all the money go? What happened to the $2.7 trillion we sent to Washington in 2013?

Walk around the National Mall and Capitol Hill, stroll along Connecticut Avenue and K Street, visit Alexandria or Bethesda. Of course, that won’t give you the whole picture – not by a long shot – but you’ll see what wonders a combination of profligacy and corruption can work.       Bottom line: In the Washington – the District of Corruption – gridlock and glitter are two sides of the same coin.


Source:Ocnus.net 2014

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