On October 27, 2021, the D.C. Policy Center’s report, Shifting landscape: A brief history of the fiscal relationship between the District of Columbia and the federal government, was cited by the Washington Business Journal:
The report from Statehood Research D.C. released Wednesday works to dispel the “common myth that the District has always been dependent on a steady stream of reliable federal funding” and argues that federal financial support for the city has been “erratic, unpredictable, and declining over time.” In the group’s first publication since the Federal City Council helped launch the nonprofit in March, Statehood Research points to evidence that “the city’s fiscal position strengthened as its fiscal autonomy increased,” finding there’s no reason to fear the District striking out on its own.
“For most of its history, the District suffered from underinvestment that can, at least in part, be attributed to the lack of stable and proper fiscal supports from the federal government in several fields including education and infrastructure,” researchers with the D.C. Policy Center, which prepared the report alongside Statehood Research, wrote. “Federal policies toward D.C. were often insensitive to the city’s needs or came too late with too many constraints about how the city could shape its own fiscal policy.”