Trump’s blame game is BS. Of course.
The NY Times points something out that I haven’t seen mentioned anywhere else. D.C. is pretty much already run by the feds and they do a shitty job of it:
Yes, there is tension between the president’s portrayal of a crime-ridden capital and crime statistics that show that the city, while still struggling with violence, is growing safer. But the deeper conflict is this: between the conditions the president and congressional Republicans decry and the power the District has, on its own, to address them under the constraints of limited home rule.
“You’re berating me to fix certain things, and you want me to do it with one hand tied behind my back,” said Christina Henderson, a District of Columbia Council member. “And then when I’m unsuccessful, you seek to punish. It’s a vicious cycle.”
Just months ago, Republicans in Congress passed a bill funding the federal government that blocked the District from spending nearly a billion dollars of its own taxpayer money toward a city budget that Congress itself had already approved. The move set off a scramble to cover police salaries, school programs and public works — all investments in bettering the city. Amid the shortfall, the city had to shut down popular, high-tech public toilets — a program explicitly aimed at improving public order, quality of life and cleanliness.
Though Republicans in the Senate passed a funding fix in March, the House has yet to consider the legislation months later (the city has managed to renew the toilet contract by shuffling money).
The limits to the city’s power — or, rather, the federal government’s power over it — extend well beyond this year’s budget crisis. The District can’t invest in many of the city’s neglected public spaces because they’re owned and controlled by the National Park Service. It can’t fill judicial vacancies on D.C. courts; that’s Congress’s job. It can’t set priorities for which kinds of crimes to prosecute; that’s the role of the U.S. attorney, who is nominated by the president.
The District is further constrained in the revenue it can raise to fund services, both because of the vast federal footprint in town, which yields no property taxes, and because the Home Rule Act bars the District from taxing nonresident commuters who work in the city (as many states do).
This tracks with the way he deals with California as well. He blames California for failing to “rake the forests” — that are 90% controlled by the federal government.
It’s so much easier to blame his political enemies for his own failures and then use police and purse power to bring the hammer down on them.