In case you haven’t heard, the House passed a bill in late April that would make Washington DC our 51st state. Now the bill is on its way to the Senate. If it passes, then we’ll have another state.
Washington DC has no Representatives or Senators. Proponents of statehood for 43,766 acres of former swampland say that amounts to “taxation without representation”.
OK. Maybe that’s true.
But that problem can be fixed without making Washington DC a State. It shouldn’t even be on the table as a serious option. There’s a much simpler solution. Just cede it back to Maryland. Or, make it part of Virginia. Actually, it doesn’t have to be Maryland, or Virginia. It could be given to any state. But Maryland or Virginia are the most logical choices.
Here’s a question, if you were the governor of Maryland and were asked to take responsibility for the cesspool that is Washington, DC what would you say?
I can say with confidence that if I were the governor of Maryland, there is no way I’d want to inherit that police-defunding, BLM-supporting, crime ridden city. If someone tried to make me take back Washington DC, I’d tell them to go pound sand. Maybe they’ve already tried to give it back to Maryland and that’s exactly what happened. I wouldn’t be surprised.
There is no value to Washington DC. The Federal government is the largest employer, and their Gross Domestic Product consists primarily of goods and services required to support all the government employees. Washington DC has no natural resources and, other than the bullshit created by politicians, they produce next to nothing.
There are no amber waves of grain, no fruited plane or purple mountains majesty. The only reason Washington DC exists where it does is because the land couldn’t be used for anything else. Hell, it wasn’t even land. There’s a reason why it’s called “the swamp”. Because it was an actual swamp.
Here’s the problem. The Constitution dictates that Washington D.C. be under the jurisdiction of the US Congress (is there any doubt why DC is such a shithole?). But that same Constitutional dictate would also block DC from becoming a state. So, we’d need an Amendment (probably) to grant statehood or to just use my much simpler solution and give it back to Maryland.
Then there’s the issue of the flag. We’d need a new one. Of course, we could just stick with the one we have. But you can bet that there would be some crybabies who would be “offended” by the fact that the old 50-star flag wasn’t inclusive enough. So, we’d need to first design a new-and-inclusive flag, and then spend billions of dollars to replace the old flags. Money that would be better spent on nearly anything else.
If we give Washington DC to Maryland, we wouldn’t need to change the flag. All we’d have to do is change “DC” to “MD”. OK, there’d probably be some confusion because Washington, MD wouldn’t be located in Washington County, MD. But, if the Maryland schools would teach less Critical Race Theory and more geography, they could eliminate any confusion.
Ideology-wise, there’s a good fit between Maryland and DC. Maryland is traditionally a blue/Liberal state. And DC also historically leans to the Left. So, the beliefs of most of the people living in Washington, DC would nicely align with most people living in Maryland. It’s not like I’m suggesting we give it to Kansas or North Dakota.
Making Washington DC a state makes no sense whatsoever. I agree that people who pay taxes should have representation, but we don’t need to make a new state to fix that. We can accomplish the same thing if we simply give Washington DC back to Maryland. And make it their problem.
