Tasty Morning Bytes – Taxation and Representation, Lost Wages in Georgetown, The Benefits of Walmart

Good morning, DCentric readers! Ready for some calorie-free links?

D.C. voting rights proponents’ faith in Obama sinks “Mark Plotkin, a WTOP political commentator who has made District statehood something of an obsession, said he sees little to distinguish Obama from his Republican predecessor, George W. Bush…“The greatest assault is indifference, and he has the hubris to take us for granted,” Plotkin said of Obama. “He went to Cairo to talk about democracy. He won’t go to Brentwood or Deanwood. He has not made one utterance about D.C. to D.C. in D.C.”” (The Washington Post)

Georgetown Flooding Hits Businesses Hard And it hits the suddenly out-of-work retail staff, bartenders and servers just as hard: “The tab for the Washington Harbor flooding could be in the millions, according to property managers familiar with the complex. That figure does not include lost wages for hundreds of workers…The biggest toll may be on the people who keep it all going. While many of these businesses are insured, the workers are not.” (WUSA Washington, DC)

How Donald Trump Lost the Black Vote “Plenty of black folks appreciate a blunt-talking guy dipped in expensive suits, as much as — if not more — than the next person. If Trump had coupled his reality-TV and Twitter-friendly style with the tolerant social views and “You can have all this, too” team-of-me ethos that he once touted, he could have been the one candidate in the 2012 Republican field to peel away a few black votes from Obama…But once Trump started arguing that Obama wasn’t American, whatever goodwill he had in blackworld up and vanished.” (The Root)

How much will Walmart cost DC taxpayers? “If Walmart were to provide a competitive wage and benefits package, it could mean real savings for the District. A Wisconsin Department of Health and Family Services study found, in 2007, that it cost the state $3.7 million annually to provide care to Walmart employees and dependents. Such costs could be significant in the District, where the Mayor has proposed $12 million in cuts this year to health care programs for low-income residents.” (Greater Greater Washington)

The Afro – Our View: ‘I’ll Give you D.C.’ “Indeed, short of statehood, short of full voting rights, Congress and the president should devise an exception whereby the District’s budget would be exempted from the federal fiscal food fight each time we’re faced with this ideological impasse. As for ideological agendas, Congress must also be barred from attaching last minute social riders on the District’s operating funds, not only because the practice is obstructing, it is also abusive, especially given the “undemocratic fact” that these congressional overseers are not in any respect accountable to the more than 600,000 disenfranchised District voters.” (afro.com)