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Message to the Congress Transmitting the District of Columbia Budget Request

May 09, 1989

To the Congress of the United States:

In accordance with the District of Columbia Self-Government and Governmental Reorganization Act, I am transmitting the District of Columbia Government's FY 1990 Budget and FY 1989 Budget supplemental.

The District's General Fund 1990 operating budget request is $3,071 million. Total Federal payments anticipated in the District's budget are $498 million. The District's FY 1989 budget supplemental contains $106 million in cost increases and $79 million in budget authority rescissions, for a net increase of $27 million. This transmittal does not affect the Federal budget.

There are four District budget issues to which I would direct your attention. First, I would encourage you to continue the abortion funding policy that the Congress established in the District's 1989 appropriations bill that prohibits the use of both Federal and local funds for abortions.

Second, the 1990 Budget reproposes an initiative that would require the District of Columbia to charge Federal establishments directly for water and sewer services. The lump-sum appropriation provided in recent years to the District for water and sewer services in Federal buildings increases the deficit unnecessarily because Federal agencies' budgets already contain funds to pay these costs. I urge the Congress to enact this needed reform. Direct billing also reduces appropriated Federal payments for nongovernmental entities, such as the American Red Cross and the Pan American Union, as well as for entities outside the appropriations process such as the Postal Service and the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation. It would encourage Federal agencies to assure the accuracy of bills received and to pursue conservation policies.

Third, I request reinstatement of Presidential apportionment authority over the Federal payment to the District of Columbia. Directing immediate disbursement of the Federal payment at the start of the fiscal year increases Treasury's cost of borrowing. Further, the Congress very clearly did not intend to exempt the District of Columbia from sequestration in the original Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act, and there is no reason for doing so via an appropriations bill.

Finally, in a related Federal Budget request, I will include a $1 million supplemental reimbursing the District Government for additional Presidential inaugural expenses incurred above the $2.3 million appropriated.

I look forward to working with the Congress on these matters.

George Bush

The White House,

May 9, 1989.

George Bush, Message to the Congress Transmitting the District of Columbia Budget Request Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/263449

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