At a rally in Washington, DC, the day before his second inauguration, President Trump promised to restore the capital city to greatness. "We will rebuild our once great cities, including our capital in Washington, DC, making them safe, clean, and beautiful again. And we want to make this city again safe," Trump told a crowd at the Capital One Arena downtown. "We're going to beautify it. We're going to make it the most beautiful capital in the world."

DC is already a beautiful city and is getting safer — violent crime dropped 35% last year and is down another 27% so far this year. But any city would undoubtedly welcome federal funds to enhance beautification and public safety efforts.

Instead of rebuilding DC, however, Trump and his Republican allies in Congress are rapidly advancing a plan that would cripple the city. Tucked into a budget bill that would fund the federal government for the rest of the fiscal year is a provision that would devastate public schools, decimate police and fire departments, and deteriorate city services.

Since last October, the start of the 2025 fiscal year, the federal government has been operating on a series of continuing resolutions. That means the federal government has been funded at the same levels as the 2024 fiscal year. These continuing resolutions, however, have allowed DC to operate at levels determined by its own 2025 budget. The city passed a balanced 2025 budget, funded with local tax revenues, in July 2024.

Now, Republicans in Congress are advancing a final continuing resolution that would fund the federal government at 2024 levels for the entire 2025 fiscal year. However, unlike previous continuing resolutions, it would also require DC to cap its spending at 2024 levels. This would require DC to cut $1.1 billion from its annual budget, even though the fiscal year is nearly half over. This would likely require immediate layoffs of teachers, police officers, and firefighters.

The massive reduction in city spending would not save the federal government money.

Around 75% of DC's budget comes from local revenues. The remainder comes from the same kind of federal grants that states receive. Direct federal payments, which cover the city's support for federal government facilities and activities, make up just 0.8% of the city budget.

There appears to be no particular rationale behind the provision other than to punish a city that is overwhelmingly Democratic and where Trump is particularly unpopular.

The budget resolution has the near unanimous support of Congressional Republicans. Its passage, however, is far from assured. The House can pass the budget with only Republican votes if the GOP caucus stays united. But to pass the Senate, it would need 60 votes. That means at least seven Democratic Senators would need to support the bill for it to become law. Most Democratic Senators have yet to take a public position.

How the proposed federal budget would devastate the city

According to a memo sent to lawmakers by DC Mayor Muriel Bowser, the proposed budget cuts would “decimate critical services DC delivers every day” and “result in immediate and unanticipated layoffs of direct service workers and reduction or elimination of direct services residents and visitors rely on.”

The proposed $1.1 billion cut would “require a 16% cut to all remaining funds that are not expended.” Seventy percent of the city’s local funds budget goes to ten agencies, including the Metropolitan Police Department, DC Public Schools, DC Public Charter Schools, and Fire and Emergency Medical Services. These agencies would face “large cuts” if the proposed budget is passed.

“Being forced to cut police officers, teachers, bus/rail service, and first responders would contravene the Trump Administration’s vision of making DC a world class national capital,” Bowser’s memo states.

According to a Washington Post analysis, in order to revert back to the 2024 budget levels, the budget for the city’s police department would be decreased by $67 million, public schools would lose $192 million, and charter schools would lose $166 million. The Department of Human Services, which leads “much of D.C.’s homeless services and poverty aid programs” would face $28 million in cuts.

Further, the Bowser memo states that, if the proposed budget cut passes, it would force the city to cut around “$600 million in projects” before fiscal year 2029 for the approved 6-year capital improvements plan. The capital improvements plan is mostly designed for “school improvements and modernizations” and “horizontal infrastructure,” which includes “roads, bridges, sidewalks, alleys, road safety improvements,” and support for DC’s public transportation system, WMATA.

As the city has been operating under the approved 2025 budget since October, if the proposed budget cut passes, the city could also be forced to renegotiate or terminate leases, decrease security and janitorial services, and would have to make “deeper cuts elsewhere” in order to pay energy bills. The budget cuts could also hurt the city’s credit rating, resulting in higher borrowing costs in the future.

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Federal cuts have already damaged DC

Even if Congress does allow DC to maintain its 2025 budget, sweeping layoffs in the federal workforce have already done significant damage to the city, where federal workers make up a quarter of the workforce and bring in a quarter of the city’s GDP.

DC has lost over 60,000 federal jobs so far in 2025. By this time in 2024, it had lost 60.

With a steep decline in jobs, economists say that DC’s economy will take hits from all sides. Laid-off employees will stop spending money at local businesses, decreasing sales tax revenue and hurting lower-income workers in the service industry. Income tax revenue will falter and housing prices will decline. More office space will be left vacant — a problem DC has already been trying to combat for years.

City officials estimate that the job cuts will cost DC $1 billion over the next three fiscal years and warn that a “mild recession” is imminent. But other policies from the White House and Congress are likely to push the city’s losses past $1 billion.

The Office of Personnel Management and the Office of Management and Budget have ordered federal agencies to work on plans to move their offices out of DC to less expensive areas and submit those plans to the White House by April 14. With federal workers making up a quarter of DC’s workforce, a mass exodus of agencies could mean that the city’s economy takes an even bigger hit over the next few years.

If Congress passes cuts to Medicaid, DC’s budget woes would grow even more. Currently, the federal government pays for 70% of the city’s Medicaid expenses.

As Trump and Congress rapidly weaken DC’s economy, they are also working to undermine what political autonomy the city has.

In early February, Senator. Mike Lee (R-UT) and Congressman Andy Ogles (R-TN) introduced a bill to repeal the Home Rule Act, which was passed in 1973 to allow the city to self-govern through a mayor and city council, although the federal government still controls aspects of its budget and judicial system.

Last week, Congressman Andrew Clyde (R-GA) introduced a bill that would withhold $185 million in federal transportation funding just this year if Bowser refuses to erase the two block-long, 35 foot-tall “Black Lives Matter” street mural painted in June 2020 just north of the White House and rename the area from “Black Lives Matter Plaza” to “Liberty Plaza.”

Bowser announced the next day that the mural would be removed — at a cost of $610,000.