Do Americans Support Washington DC's Economy? (living, cost, state, compared)

[DANNYY]

Well, we all created it but do we support it?

Criteria:
- Adjustment to inflation (Your view on it?)
- Upswing in Washington DC, compared to downswing everywhere else (Your opinions on it?)
- Corporations leaving for Washington DC for contract work with the US Government (example: Northrop Grumann) and the likes (Your opinion on an expanding corporate base?)
- Federal tax dollars being spent on infrastructure improvements within Washington DC
- Payroll of government employee's skyrocketing throughout last decade
- Anything else pertaining to this city's economy compared to any of the other cities right now by performance

Basic question: Do you support what you helped create? Why or why not?

And do you think Washington DC's success cuts the success of other cities such as Los Angeles, Dallas, New York, Philadelphia, Houston, Boston, Miami, Atlanta, Detroit, & others?

[kidphilly]

Criteria:
- Adjustment to inflation (Your view on it?) - Not sure what this actually means
- Upswing in Washington DC, compared to downswing everywhere else (Your opinions on it?) - Bigger Govt has given DC a artificailly healthy economy relative to the rest of the US
- Corporations leaving for Washington DC for contract work with the US Government (example: Northrop Grumann) and the likes (Your opinion on an expanding corporate base?) - The pendullum has swung too far this direction
- Federal tax dollars being spent on infrastructure improvements within Washington DC - Should not be disproportional
- Payroll of government employee's skyrocketing throughout last decade - disproportionate to the private industry - too much fat in the Gov't

Basic question: Do you support what you helped create? Why or why not? No

And do you think Washington DC's success cuts the success of other cities such as Los Angeles, Dallas, New York, Philadelphia, Houston, Boston, Miami, Atlanta, Detroit, & others? Yes

I support the US economy in general (DC included) not big Gov't

[CelticGermanicPride]

no, they don't support it... until they get a nice job offer here.

[Caymon83]

Seems like the thread is built around the narative that the Fed is set up to transfer money from the private sector across the US to the fed gov in DC.

Obviously, DC benefits most on a per-capital basis. But, lots of cities benefit from federal spending.

The federal workforce is pretty decentralized. The Govt employes roughly 2.98 million people, 328,000 are in the DC MSA. (ie. 89% work outside the DC area)

FWIW, the Federal Payroll is up 3.3% over the past 10 years. Arguably too big, but not skyrocketing.

Fed spending rather than being a transfer from the US to DC, is really more a transfer from working middle and upper income taxpayers to old people (medicare,social security) interest groups (farmers, small business, students) and the general public (defence, highways, transit, schools, basic research, etc).

Now maybe things like highway construction, financial aid, medical care, scientific research, and home loans should be scaled back. But, that isn't really specific to DC.

[soug]

Originally Posted by Caymon83

The Govt employes roughly 2.98 million people, 328,000 are in the DC MSA. (ie. 89% work outside the DC area)

Does that figure include military?

As for the question, I would say yes for certain things. Going to Maryland, a LOT of my friends work for NIH, NIST, FDA research labs, etc. I support any type of government investment in science and research, and this is the type of thing that has helped the state of Maryland boom in recent years.

[ffknight918]

Not everyone in DC is benefiting. The cost of living is so high that those that keep the city going can't really afford to live in it.

We(the DC Fire Department) haven't gotten a raise in over six years. Certain things are slowly starting to get taken away. We actually run out of ambulances sometimes in the city due to the high call volume and not enough units. Now there are threats to cutting an entire shift(500 firemen) in the department. This would also make it a 56 hour work week for what's now one of the busiest departments in the nation.

You'd think with all of this money the city supposedly has we could spend a little more on things that matter instead of a street car line that hasn't even been approved to be put in use yet.

[Caymon83]

Originally Posted by soug

Does that figure include military?

As for the question, I would say yes for certain things. Going to Maryland, a LOT of my friends work for NIH, NIST, FDA research labs, etc. I support any type of government investment in science and research, and this is the type of thing that has helped the state of Maryland boom in recent years.

Its from the BLS, I believe they count civilian employees, but exclude the enlisted military.

Most of the scinece agency staff is in DC. But, I think there spending base is pretty diverse. Research Universites all over the country are pretty dependent on NSF and NIH grants.

[Caymon83]

xxxx

[EastBay-NowDCarea]

Originally Posted by ffknight918

Not everyone in DC is benefiting. The cost of living is so high that those that keep the city going can't really afford to live in it.

We(the DC Fire Department) haven't gotten a raise in over six years. Certain things are slowly starting to get taken away. We actually run out of ambulances sometimes in the city due to the high call volume and not enough units. Now there are threats to cutting an entire shift(500 firemen) in the department. This would also make it a 56 hour work week for what's now one of the busiest departments in the nation.

You'd think with all of this money the city supposedly has we could spend a little more on things that matter instead of a street car line that hasn't even been approved to be put in use yet.

That sucks! Looks like the recession is finally starting to affect DC. It appears that other metros are slowly recovering from the recession, but the DC metro is slowly falling into recession. It will be interesting what happens next week - the government may shut down - and the effect will trickle down and affect all sectors of the economy...mainly DC.

[DANNYY]

Originally Posted by EastBay-NowDCarea

That sucks! Looks like the recession is finally starting to affect DC. It appears that other metros are slowly recovering from the recession, but the DC metro is slowly falling into recession. It will be interesting what happens next week - the government may shut down - and the effect will trickle down and affect all sectors of the economy...mainly DC.

Why will the government shut down next week?

Ironically, the results for how weak the performance was for GDP all across the nation sparked some curiosity for me. So I went through searching to see if 2010 was a miserable economical year as 2009, and seems like nothing comes close to 2009, for most places (places I'm affiliated with at least) and that onward recovery has been taking place modestly and 2011 will be a prosperous year.

However, I've seen quite a few reports that should alarm Washington DC, its really not at all looking good. The recession started in 2007, at that point the country was in the recession, deep into it besides these three areas: Great Plains, Texas, & DMV. In 2009, the recession caught up to Texas, although the damages were staggering but the recession was only for a year and a half and recovery started taking place with evidence today that its looking much brighter. I think the DMV is a late comer, its slipping into its own personal economic slowdown right now, and it may have to stabilize further to regain its 2010 peak levels.

The moral of the story is, besides the Great Plains states in the Midwest, no other area in the country could have or did escape an economic downtown at all. For what its worth, I love Washington DC truly, and look forward to going home there for the summer this year.