D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser has said the city will need to cut about $400 million from its current budget, after Congress passed its federal spending bill that forced the District to revert to 2024 spending levels.
The U.S. Senate then passed a separate bill that would allow D.C. to avoid those cuts, but the House is yet to act. In an exclusive interview with WTOP, Rep. Andy Harris, a Republican representing Maryland’s 1st District, spoke out against the bill and said it doesn’t have support in the House.
Listen to the interview with WTOP’s Nick Iannelli or read the full transcript below.
The following transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.
- Transcript:
- Andy Harris:
I suspect at some point we’ll turn our attention to D.C. finances. We’re a little concerned on my side of the aisle, because D.C., for instance, is talking about things like reparations and other subjects. Spending a billion dollars to move a sports team from Maryland into D.C.
And you know, there’s some people who question whether those are appropriate uses of money, and whether or not we should reinstitute the constitutional authority that we have over the federal enclave, again, clearly stated in the Constitution, and some people think we should reassert that authority, especially when it comes to some of these budget issues.
- Nick Iannelli:
That’s interesting. We did hear from the White House at one point, President Trump posted a message on social media saying, “The House should take up the D.C. funding fix that the Senate has passed and get it done immediately,” with immediately, all in capital letters. So the president is in favor of it. As I hear you talk about this, though, it really seems like you’re saying it might not have the support necessary, and it sounds like maybe you’re not in favor of it either.
- Andy Harris:
Oh, I firmly believe that we should put some guardrails on the spending, because again, there are some items that the District wants to spend, where they want to spend money, that I think are inconsistent with the majority in Congress. And I think we should have a robust discussion about where D.C. spends its money because that’s the authority and power that the Constitution actually gave to the to Congress in its oversight.
- Nick Iannelli:
So if the bill came up for a vote today, you would vote against it?
- Andy Harris:
That’s right.
- Nick Iannelli:
You would?
- Andy Harris:
Yeah, if it were a clean bill that didn’t put some constraints on how the District was going to spend that money, I would vote against the bill. I’m also told that I think we didn’t have the correct wording on preventing the District of Columbia to spend taxpayer dollars on abortion funding. So that’s another area that would need to be corrected. So yeah, the bill is not ready for prime time in the house.
- Nick Iannelli:
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser has repeatedly said that these are local tax dollars collected from local D.C. residents and that D.C. should have full control over how that money is spent. So given what you just said about how Congress can control how D.C. spends its money, how do you respond to the mayor?
- Andy Harris:
I’ll just send her a copy of the Constitution. I mean, it’s plain black and white, the Congress has the authority over the federal enclave.
- Nick Iannelli:
So your message to D.C. would essentially be that city leaders should move ahead and adjust their budget on the local level now because of the changes to the budget made by Congress.
- Andy Harris:
Well that’s absolutely right. I mean, what it did is it froze spending at last year’s level. I think a lot of Americans think that governments have gotten too big, that actually freezing spending is the first step in getting government and their bureaucracies under control. So, you know, again, I don’t think spending at last year’s level is a bad exercise for any governments.
- Nick Iannelli:
I couldn’t help but notice that earlier, you did mention the possible deal to move the Commanders out of Maryland into D.C. As a congressman representing Maryland, is that something that’s been on your mind? Are you concerned about that?
- Andy Harris:
I think there are other more important issues. But if it’s going to move out of state, I don’t think taxpayers should be involved in any way with any of the funding for that. These are, you know, multibillionaires who own these teams. And I think they should be bearing the expense of building or renovating stadiums. The bottom line has gone way too far with these billionaire owners who believe that hardworking, middle-class taxpayers should bear the cost of these now fairly luxurious stadiums.
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