gelinas
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response 55 of 59:
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Dec 19 20:58 UTC 2000 |
Kevin, I think you've missed the point: DC residents pay federal income
taxes, but they have no representation in Congress. This is not about the
Electoral College; this is about the Congress. Given that Congress is
the 'city council' of Washington, this is just like the people in Detroit
selecting Ann Arbor's city council. We wouldn't much like that, would we?
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mdw
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response 56 of 59:
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Dec 19 21:42 UTC 2000 |
As I recall, DC has *really* screwed up demographics, even more badly
slewed than most other eastern urban areas. The south-western area of
DC is where the capital, white-house, smithsonian, and most of the
tourist attractions are. This area consists mostly of big governmental
buildings and office buildings, and most of the workers there commute in
from elsewhere. A bit to the west, there is a small district,
Georgetown, which has most of the less affordable smaller residential
and retail space. Think "yuppie gets rich" and you'll understand where
many of the wives of the beltway bandits go shopping. Most tourists
never get past seeing these two areas of DC. Most of the *population*
of DC lives to the north and east in DC. These people are mostly poor,
mostly black, and mostly out of sight. In fact, the population of
washington DC is about 80% black. Even as a tourist, you *can* spot
these people - if you look very closely, you'll notice the cleaning
people, fast food service stands, and other menial jobs are invariable
held by black people in DC, whereas in many other areas, it's more
common to see some % of those jobs occupied by teenagers, whites, and
other segments of society. One of the key factors in this is that there
is one entire segment of society that is under-represented in DC, the
"middle-class". Basically, DC is more segregated, and more classist,
than I think most of us are used to seeing. It is easy to ignore that
80% of the population, because we've all trained ourselves to ignore
those people, and in DC, the drug dealers, bad neighborhoods, and such
are all conveniently geographically segregated from the tourist areas.
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carson
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response 58 of 59:
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Dec 20 18:39 UTC 2000 |
(I really can't tell if some of you have a mad-on for disagreeing
with Richard, can't tell the difference between a majority and a
plurality, or plainly can't read. "most" doesn't equal "more.")
(it's been difficult to find employment figures for D.C. alone, as
it seems to be studied exclusively as a metropolitan area. but,
according to petrapub.com [who are they, anyway?], while "private
sector jobs *now* outnumber those in government" [emphasis mine] in
the District, "Federal Government is [the] largest influence" on
the economy of the metropolitan area.)
(pribly a better reference is the economic study found at
<http://www.wpnewsweek.com/wp-srv/business/longterm/localec/fullerreport/1s
tory.htm>,
which not only describes the economic and population losses D.C. has had
to its neighboring suburbs [residents of the Detroit metropolitan area
should be familiar with that concept], but notes that the downsizing of
the federal workforce [which was President Clinton's doing, although the
congressional Republicans wanted deeper cuts] had a profound impact on
D.C.'s economy.)
(if I remember the progression of the item so far, it's that D.C. maybe
should be a state, but won't be because it votes overwhelmingly
Democratic, and it might vote that way because the Democrats won't cut
federal spending as much as the Republicans, but that might not be true
because the local economy might not depend on the federal government.
something tells me that, if I were a D.C. voter on public welfare, or
working for a Democrat, or working in a job that depends on federal
spending, or even flipping burgers on Pennsylvania Avenue, I'd vote
Democratic for my own economic self-interest.)
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