MR. KOJO NNAMDIFrom WAMU 88.5 at American University in Washington, welcome to "The Politics Hour" featuring Tom Sherwood. I'm Kojo Nnamdi. Tom Sherwood is our resident analyst. He's a reporter for NBC 4 and a columnist for the Current Newspapers. Tom Sherwood, welcome.

MR. TOM SHERWOODWelcome back. And welcome to you.

NNAMDIThank you very much. Our guest analyst is Mike DeBonis. He is a columnist with The Washington Post. Mike DeBonis, welcome to you.

MR. MIKE DEBONISThanks, Kojo. Thanks for having me.

NNAMDIAnd as Tom Sherwood mentioned, I just got back from Haiti. Despite earthquake, hurricane and growing cholera epidemic, Haiti's politicians would be a natural fit for "The Politics Hour." What with an election coming up Nov. 28, more political posters than you've ever seen in your life, posters that I've called them the beautiful people. You should see the way the candidates look in these posters. They're well-groomed, well-dressed, coiffured, makeup, huge larger than life full-color posters beaming down like toothpaste commercials, beaming down on you from a pile of rubble (laugh) or pasted onto a makeshift fence or walls or splattered just about on any surface. They're like a study in contrast.

NNAMDIAnd they're all great for our kind of Tom Sherwood-Mike DeBonis question that never gets asked in Haiti because it's kind of a violation of the political culture: Where is the money coming from for these posters? (laugh) We actually asked a Haitian reporter why that question never gets asked. He said, well, there seems to be an unspoken agreement among the candidates not to ask it of one another, because everybody wants to know where the other got his money from so that they could get their money (laugh) from the same place. So nobody ever -- actually asks the question.

SHERWOODAnd I think we need better posters in American politics. You know, David Catania, this past election, the at-Large councilmember, had this huge sign reminding people they could vote for two at-Large candidates.

NNAMDIYeah.

SHERWOODI thought it was great. It's like a three-by -- three and a half-by-four foot sign.

DEBONISYeah.

SHERWOODExcept they were blocking the view of the traffic coming down the street.

DEBONISThe most memorable campaign signs in district politics is the ones that are unreadable like the time Carol Schwartz did white text on yellow background.

SHERWOODYes.

DEBONISThat one was memorable. And the Eleanor Holmes Norton signs of later. Can't even tell what her name is there.

SHERWOODThe most recent one, Eleanor does...

NNAMDIBy the way, James Rosapepe, feel free to join this conversation. Our first guest.

STATE SEN. JAMES ROSAPEPEThank you very much.

SHERWOODHey, you haven't introduced him yet.

NNAMDIMaryland State Senator James Rosapepe joins us in studio. He represents District 21. He's a Democrat. That district representing Prince George's and Anne Arundel County. He's on the Education, Health And Environmental Affairs Committee. And we'll be talking to him about those things shortly. But feel free to join into this conversation we're having about political candidates and posters and the likes. You can find a lot of the posters that we saw in Port-au-Prince on our website @kojoshow.org. You were saying?

SHERWOODI was just -- well, I would think, Rosapepe, I think -- did that take two signs to get your name on?

ROSAPEPEIt does. It does. (laugh)

SHERWOODBut that was something that was missing...

ROSAPEPEThey were quite large.

SHERWOODI was gonna mention the Eleanor signs, Ms. Norton's signs this time have in scripted the word Eleanor that's at an angle and you cannot tell what it is. But -- so yours is different.

ROSAPEPEJust...

NNAMDIHow about the Faith signs that have the bugle on them? Because it's a...

DEBONISThat's a brand for her, you know?

NNAMDIYeah.

DEBONISShe's owned that bugle. You know, if you see a bugle in this town, think politics, you think Faith. There are very few politicians have the -- you know, have a brand like that.

NNAMDIIt's the politics hour featuring Tom Sherwood, whose pet peeve this week, the security at the National Monument on the mall and the notion that there should be an added layer of security for the Washington Monument?

SHERWOODYeah. They want to -- some new facility to screen the visitors who cue up to go into the Washington Monument and ride up to the top. And you know, there was proposal a few years ago to big -- dig out the ground and put a big underground facility there. And thank goodness that died. And -- but now it's back again. You know, they put a wall around it to keep trucks out. And I'm just -- you know, we should just -- my recommendation in the column -- well, let's just have a theme park. Let's have Disney take over. We'll take all cars out of its center seating, there'd be a 20-foot wall around, we all buy tickets to come in, and we can go around in little mouseketeer vans or whatever, and there won't be anybody to scare us.

NNAMDIAnd there should be a sign indicating that this used to be...

SHERWOODWe can't have monuments to our freedom that are blocked off by all these security crap.

NNAMDIJim Rosapepe, what do you think about that?

ROSAPEPEI think it's a bad idea.

ROSAPEPEWell, you'll recall that they wanted -- they figured this was a good idea for the U.S. capital and they figured they would put everything underground and build this big visitor center. And of course that took how many more years than I thought it would. And how many more millions of dollars than I thought it was.

SHERWOODAnd it's a very nice center when you go there, if you don't mind being underground for a while.

ROSAPEPERight.

SHERWOODBut, you know, there are some concerns that if you try to dig up the ground around the Washington Monument, it'll disrupt and disturb the underpinnings of the monument itself, which are wooden post. It's all kind of things that just -- you just don't wanna mess with American freedom, I would say.

NNAMDIWell, how do you feel about the makeover proposal for the National Mall?

SHERWOODWell, I -- it's actually pretty good. It's like 30 different proposals. It's to make it more family friendly. You've got places where you can actually sit down and have something to eat. That your families can take children to restaurant -- I mean, to restrooms that actually work. That you can get out of the hot sun or the cold wind. There's a lot f good things to repair them all. Chip Akridge, the developer from the national trust for the mall is, you know, he's been saying, it's got to be more friendly. It's the front porch of America. It's got to be more friendly to the millions of people who come here.

NNAMDIOkay. Let's go on to politics now at politics, as they are expressed in electoral politics. They were on this broadcast two weeks ago, the Democrat Gerry Connolly and the Republican Keith Fimian. Now, Keith Fimian has conceded Virginia's 11th District House race. Gerry Connolly's lead was about 981 votes. But Mr. Fimian says that another canvass by state officials after Nov. 22 could change his concession. But it looks as if Connolly razor edge win.

SHERWOODMr. Connolly got so excited he had to be hospitalized.

ROSAPEPEYeah.

SHERWOODHe's -- nobody knows. It's a very close race. And Mr. Fimian did very well. It's a -- it was a Republican year, and Connolly was able to withstand it. But you know, it was very close. But it's not, you know, recounts generally don't turn things around.

NNAMDIYeah, apparently not in this case. Mike?

DEBONISYeah. I mean, I -- you know, I think it was why -- especially for someone who, you know, who ran on a platform of being concerned about taxpayer money that he did not, you know, spend -- waste any taxpayer money on an effort that seemed very unlikely to succeed. Now, of course, you know, the fact that it was close, there was less than a thousand votes. As they begin a new round of Monday morning quarterbacking, you know, wondering, you know, well, what if there was a Republican in there other than Keith Fimian? What if Pat Herrity or another, you know, more, you know, more moderate Republican had ran in this district, someone more Tom Davis-like, who was in that district for so long? So that's a question plenty of people are asking.

SHERWOODMore Frank Wolf-like.

DEBONISMore Frank Wolf-like even. Unfortunately, he can't have two districts. He has to settle for the one he has. So, you know, that's something people are wondering, and that's something Gerry Connolly, though, he says he's not gonna change a thing. In two years, we'll see if that affects how he campaigns.

NNAMDIOne last political item. Both Mike DeBonis and Tom Sherwood writing this week about what they, I guess, what characterize as revisionist history, the attempt to paint the loss of Mayor Adrian Fenty as a victory only for the public school unions that invested in the campaign against Mayor Fenty having gone on a national program, the Bill Maher show, lately to talk about that and saying that it was school reform and that as a pioneer on school reform when you are in the frontlines sometimes the frontlines are the first to get shot down.

SHERWOODI think Mayor Fenty is bigger than this, but, you know, he's allowed this perception when he's being interviewed on these national no-nothing journalists who want to ask questions about the city. He allows the impression to be left that he lost the election because Michelle Rhee was too tough on school reform, and he backed her, and that's why he lost. That's a small part of why he lost. He lost because he wouldn't talk to anyone. Now, this week, you know, he actually was overseeing -- he did something good, the new convention center hotel downtown with a thousand people, hundreds of people were there. And Mayor Fenty was friendly. He called out people in the audience that he knew and were part of the city's business elite. And he called them by name and was laughing and joking. And everyone there was saying if he'd been like this during the campaign and during his time in office, he would have won. He lost because he shut out the city.

NNAMDIMike DeBonis?

DEBONISI agree, Tom. I think that part of this -- the reason that...

NNAMDIJim see how they banked the double-team (word?)...

SHERWOODYou know, (unintelligible).

DEBONISThe reason...

NNAMDI...up in the middle.

SHERWOODNo, that agree had a big pause actually.

DEBONISNo, no.

NNAMDIIt's conditional.

SHERWOODIt agrees but.

DEBONISI mean, it's hard for these national journalists who want to swoop in and take a lesson or two from this and adding -- and connect it to X, Y or Z.

SHERWOODOr they could call you, and they...

DEBONISYou know...

SHERWOOD...can find out and (unintelligible).

DEBONISRight. And I can give them, you know, a 30-minute, you know, breakdown of how awful his re-election campaign was. But I think the reason that he's really allowing this to persist is, number one, it's flattering to him, and it's flattering to what I think will probably be the second act or the next act of his career. I think that he really does want to pursue education reform and sort of tie his fortunes to that.

SHERWOODWell, Kevin Chavous has already done that.

DEBONISJust like Kevin Chavous did that, but hey...

SHERWOODAnd Ward 7council member who lost to Vince Gray.

DEBONISIf you talk to Kevin Chavous, Kevin Chavous will tell you business is good.

SHERWOODWell, he's also the lawyer for the guys who won the lottery contracts, so business is very good for Kevin Chavous.

NNAMDIMike DeBonis is our guest analyst. He's a columnist with The Washington Post. Tom Sherwood is our resident analyst. He's a reporter for NBC 4 and a columnist for the Current Newspapers. Our guest is Maryland State Senator Jim Rosapepe. He represents District 21. He is a Democrat. He's on the Education, Health and Environmental Affairs Committee. He ran unopposed for his second term as state senator. Welcome, formally, Senator Rosapepe.

ROSAPEPEThank you very much.

SHERWOODFor those of us who live in the city, District 21 is...

ROSAPEPECollege Park, Beltsville, Laurel and western Anne Arundel County.

NNAMDIAnd Jim Rosapepe is a former ambassador to Romania. He served on the board of regents of the university system of Maryland, which brings me to my first question -- tuition. Tuition increased at the University of Maryland 3 percent this fall after a four-year freeze, and Governor O'Malley just announced that it will be going up again next year. What do you say to that?

ROSAPEPEWhat I say to it is Governor O'Malley is the national game changer on trying to make college affordable. You know, over the 1980s, 1990s and the last decade, college tuition has, as everybody knows, has gone ahead much faster than the rate of inflation and has priced higher education out of the realm for many middle-class families. During the Ehrlich administration, as listeners to this show know, tuition went up 43 percent. And by the time O'Malley was elected in 2006, we had the sixth highest tuition for public universities in the United States. With the tuition freeze that Governor O'Malley proposed that the legislature supported, we have now brought ourselves down into the middle ranges, probably in the low 20s in terms of ranking college tuition. And Governor O'Malley proposed and we supported limiting the increase for this fall to 3 percent, and it's his intention, as I understand, it's certainly my intention and my colleagues' intention, to keep a cap on tuition for the foreseeable future to keep college tuition down.

NNAMDIHow do you make the relationship between the fall in college graduation rates in the U.S. and tuition increases?

ROSAPEPEOh, my God, people have been priced out of the market. That's exactly what it is. That's exactly what's happened. It's around the world. You know, it used to be we had the highest college graduation rates in the world. We don't anymore. Right now, among the whole population, Russia is ahead of us. Canada is ahead of us. Israel is ahead of us. But most importantly, among people aged 25 to 34, we ranked 10th in the world now in college graduation rates. And it's fundamentally because there are many reasons, but the most important reason is over the last 30 years since the Reagan revolution, we've essentially been privatizing public higher education by shifting the costs from the government, from the public to the parents and to the families. I saw this when I was in the board of regents. When those big tuition increases went into effect five and six years ago, we had thousands of kids just dropping out of school.

SHERWOODDuring the most recent campaign for governor, I saw the ads talking about how tuition has been frozen for three years and how...

ROSAPEPEFour years.

SHERWOOD...four years and Ehrlich has had to increase it...

ROSAPEPERight.

SHERWOOD...40 percent. I don't remember anything in the campaign about how the governor intended for the tuition to go up. Did that -- when does -- when was this...

ROSAPEPEYou didn't miss it. He proposed in his budget in January...

SHERWOODOkay.

ROSAPEPE...of this year to limit...

SHERWOODLimit 3 percent.

ROSAPEPE...the increase for 3 percent. And said at that time, as he had said before, that he intended to keep tuition increases moderate for the foreseeable future.

SHERWOODThree percent a year for four -- just for this year. But what about the next year and the year after?

ROSAPEPEHe didn't make a specific commitment to what it would be.

SHERWOODOkay.

ROSAPEPEAt that time, he had a budget that said 3 percent.

SHERWOODOkay.

ROSAPEPEBut what he said was, and he said to me privately, he says to everybody publicly, is his goal is to make college education increasingly affordable by keeping this caps on tuition.

NNAMDIIf you have questions or comments for Jim Rosapepe, you can call us at 800-433-8850 or go to our website, kojoshow.org. Raise a question or make a comment there. Mike DeBonis?

DEBONISWell, I would just say that in terms of what this cap that you would like to stick to, I mean, the governor has said, you know, a -- I think that the word he uses is modest.

ROSAPEPEModest. Right.

DEBONISYou know, can you put any meat on those bones? What is modest? Is it just keeping up with inflation, consumer prices?

ROSAPEPEYeah. I can't put some meat on the bones. I've sponsored legislation the last several years which would put a permanent 4 percent cap on tuition. The governor proposed 3 percent which is more modest. Given what's going on with tuition in other states, I mean, you're gonna have huge budget cuts to higher education around the country and huge additional increases in tuition in other states. Maryland is different. I mean, literally, it probably stands about in all the states in the country in terms of making college affordability the priority, and I think that's what the governor is committed to. And the other issue is, we had a state commission called the O'Hannon Commission that recommended that in the future, we limit increases in tuition to increases in personal income. Again, I've sponsored legislation to do that. I think that's the right way to go. I think that's what it means.

SHERWOODWe've talked on it a lot on this program about the slots and with me today in the control room there is Tom George. He's a junior at University of Maryland and he had a question about it. He says, when will the university system begin to see the revenues from newly opened slots in Maryland? Will it help ease the case for tuition increases?

ROSAPEPEI think so, but I don't think it's a game changer.

SHERWOODIs there any set?

ROSAPEPEWell, there is money coming in now. I mean, the first slots parlor opened up in Cecil County. So money is starting to come in. As a result of the referendum in Anne Arundel County, where the decision was made to go ahead with the slots parlor at the Arundel Mill Shopping Center...

SHERWOODIs there a by law that the said amount money from the slots will go to education or how is it…

ROSAPEPEWell, yes. I mean, actually all the money from the slots goes to education. It's not limited to higher ed and it includes K through 12.

DEBONISSenator, one question I had is just, you know, if you're running a university, you're trying to give your students the best education they can. You're trying to maintain a certain...

ROSAPEPEMm-hmm.

DEBONIS...level of education. You have these caps on your tuition. Do you think that hamstrings them at all? I mean, are you getting any pushback from them and listen, we wanna give the residents of Maryland the best education we can and I don't know if by capping tuition if we can do that.

ROSAPEPEAbsolutely. Look, I served in the Board of Regions for the system for five years so I'm familiar with it. Yeah. You get pushback from college presidents who want all the state money they can get from the taxpayer and all the tuition they can get from the students. They want as much money as they can get. So sure you get pushback from the campus. But the reality is, that tuition is a relatively in-state tuition from in-state students because we're talking about in-state students. Out of state students pay the market rate. In-state students, whose parents pay taxes or they themselves pay taxes, pay an in-state rate. The overwhelming amount of money for their education comes from the state. A billion dollars a year comes from the state in the University of Maryland system. If you increase tuition by let's say another -- let's say they made a 6 percent increase instead of 3 percent increase, that would only bring the university $20 million, $25 million. Their tuition rates are not that significant in terms of funding the university. They're very significant in terms of kids being able to go to school.

NNAMDISenator -- go ahead.

DEBONISWhy is that -- so is there -- I mean, is there any thought in terms of coordinating this to what the state support is that -- outside of tuition? You know, what's actually coming in.

ROSAPEPEThat's the whole -- that's exactly the point. And that's what Gov. O'Malley has led the country in. The way he's been able to hold down tuition to make cost more affordable in Maryland is by protecting and enhancing state support for the university. That's the only way to do it. That's the way it should be done and that's the way Gov. O'Malley has done it.

NNAMDIAnother way in which Maryland is considered different is that it has protected higher education funding to some extent by using federal stimulus money. Can you expect that revenue stream to continue?

ROSAPEPENo. I wish it would because we have too much unemployment in this country and we need additional stimulus. The stimulus that was passed two years ago was much too small as we all now know. Unfortunately, the Republicans, want control of the House of Representatives and give every impression of trying to block any effort in Congress to increase the stimulus. So I think you're exactly right. We're gonna have to balance the state budget and protect higher education without additional federal stimulus money.

SHERWOODAnd what is that -- what does the budget look like? What kind of deficit problems do we have in the city? I know it's a couple of hundred million dollars. Montgomery County, like it says, is a couple of -- $200 million.

ROSAPEPEYeah. I mean -- I think the – they just came up with a new projection for the next year. And it's not a deficit because we never have a deficit. We pass a balanced budget every year. We cut spending. We increase...

SHERWOODProjected revenue.

ROSAPEPEProjected revenues is really what it is.

SHERWOODThere you go.

ROSAPEPEAnd the projection, without changes that the governor is gonna make when he submits his budget, is like $1.6 billion dollars.

SHERWOODRight.

ROSAPEPEAnd the general fund is about 13, 14 billion. So it's a little over 10 percent. It's a very tough budget problem.

NNAMDILater in the broadcast, we'll be talking with D.C. Councilmember Jack Evans about D.C.'s budgetary problems. But in Maryland, there have been furloughs of state employees in the past three years including university employees. Could that help offset tuition increases?

ROSAPEPENo. They're really unrelated to each other because the tuition increases don't raise that much money for the university. And frankly, the furloughs don't save that much money. My impression is that we've got three years of furloughs because the view of the administration, and frankly, the view of the unions representing state employees has been to try to protect people from layoffs. And so that's always a tradeoff, a little bit of reduction in income for everybody versus a total reduction in income for people in a layoff. How that will be resolved going forward, I don't know. I am concerned about going into a fourth year of furloughs, both from a suffering point of view for the families that are suffering, but also from a morale point of view. The problem is, we had a worldwide economic crisis and we're all, in every way, paying the price for that.

NNAMDIYeah. But you sponsored an anti-deficit and fiscal responsibility act in the Maryland State Senate this year. If furloughs are not the answer, what is?

ROSAPEPEWell, I think -- furloughs may be part of the answer if that's what employees and the administration want to do being part of the answer. To balance the budget, you got to cut the budget. So what you do, it's just like in a family, you say what you have to do, what do you need to do and what would you like to do, but you can put off. And so, one of the things that I would like to do is I would like to fully fund the University of Maryland's budget to fund us at a level of competing states. That would cost about $700 million a year. I'd love to do that this coming year. We can't do that this coming year. That doesn't mean we don't wanna do in the future. But you put off things that you don't -- just at home, you got to pay your electric bill, but you don't need to buy a new refrigerator. That's the way I think the state needs to think about.

SHERWOODIs there any indication at all -- I like to watch CNBC in the mornings. Is there any indication at all that the economy of Maryland is getting better?

ROSAPEPEThere's a little bit. Just like there's a little bit indication of the national economy is getting better. I personally -- I'm very pessimistic about the economy generally getting better over the next year or two for all the reasons everybody knows. But Maryland's economy, obviously, is better than other states, largely because we are so integrated with the federal...

SHERWOODCalifornia has like a $25 billion budget.

ROSAPEPEYeah. But they're a lot bigger state.

SHERWOODYeah, that's pretty big.

NNAMDIAnother issue you're working on is re-regulation of electric utilities. Where does that stand?

ROSAPEPEOur stand is two years ago, we passed the governor's bill to re-regulate electric rates. We couldn't get through the House. Since then, the governor asked the Public Service Commission to look at moving re-regulation on their own. They're doing that. We're gonna see where they are at the end of the year and see if we need to come back in with legislation this coming session. The good news is that because of the governor's efforts over the past four years really, electric rates have come down a little bit. They haven’t come down as much as they need to, but they're moving in the right direction so they're on direction now.

NNAMDIJim Rosapepe is a Maryland state senator. He represents District 21. He's a Democrat. That's -- district represents Prince George's and Anne Arundel Counties. He's on the Education, Health and Environmental Affairs Committee. Thank you so much for joining us.

ROSAPEPEThank you.

NNAMDIYou're listening to the Politics Hour featuring Tom Sherwood. He is our resident analyst. He's a reporter for NBC 4 and a columnist for the Current Newspapers. Our guest analyst in Mike DeBonis. He is a columnist for The Washington Post. And Maryland Attorney General Douglas Gansler filed a complaint, Wednesday, against Julius Henson. He is a Baltimore-based political consultant, who has worked for a lot of Democrats and who worked for former Republican Governor Robert Ehrlich in this campaign. Here's the complaint that his anonymous election night robocalls were designed to suppress the Democratic vote and violated federal law. He was paid a lot of money this year by the Ehrlich campaign. He placed more than a 112,000 calls, according to Gansler, in violation of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act. He took responsibility for those calls but suggested that O'Malley had already won before the polls closed and that voters could relax and stay home, although the polls were still open. Henson, in his defense, said the message was counter-intuitive, that the calls were intended to motivate Ehrlich's supporters to vote in the election's final hour. Tom Sherwood.

SHERWOODNot a very good explanation of what those were intended. They clearly appear to be, I mean, for -- to a reasonable person it will seem that they appear to have met to influence their election. And it just seems -- whether or not it's gonna move to a criminal case or anything like that, I'm not sure. But it just seem like an inappropriate wrong thing...

NNAMDII'll tell you one thing that -- go ahead.

DEBONISWell, I mean -- you know, the question is, you know, this comes four years after the Ehrlich campaign was sort of accused of similar, sort of, you know, things that fall into the banner of dirty tricks. This time, I guess the question is, you know, how much did -- does the governor know about it. and I don’t know that he's really given a sufficient answer, you know? But, you know, it's really sort of an ugly thing to, you know, wanna be accused of, especially after you've lost by more than 10 times.

SHERWOODIt's the election to being closed I would be more worried about.

DEBONISRight.

NNAMDIAnd was this in a previous Ehrlich campaign or was this the Michael Steel campaign when he ran?

DEBONISRight.

SHERWOODEhrlich comes around again. Now, I might be making a relationship that people may find strange. But it just seems to me that you -- and you send out robocall telling people, okay, your candidate has already won. No need to go to the polls. And the attorney general eventually finds a complaint. Where are the complaints from all of those people who were so upset at the new Black Panther Party in Philadelphia...

DEBONISYeah.

NNAMDI...having a couple of guys standing outside a polling station about which nobody actually complained.

SHERWOODRight, right.

NNAMDIAnd then they don't -- you don't hear a peep from this people about this kind of thing going on. Don’t ask me.

SHERWOODWell, I don’t -- our -- you know, I don't listen. If people started robocalling, if I get a robocall at home and I get many of them during campaigns, I do not listen to them.

DEBONISRight.

SHERWOODThere's nothing that anybody in their scratchy recorded voice has to say to me that I wanna hear.

DEBONISI am one of the widgeons who no longer have a landline. Sorry, Verizon. So I don't get any of these calls anymore. So I have to rely on...

SHERWOODI'm about to give up my landline.

DEBONISI have to rely on old people like Tom Sherwood to tell me about it.

SHERWOODI'm gonna give up my landline. But I just -- I'm just -- inertia, that's all it is.

NNAMDIMike DeBonis, you wrote in your column, Thursday, about your the -- your successor, City Paper's new Loose Lips, Alan Suderman, and the report card he gives Mayor-elect Vincent Gray. Care to comment?

DEBONISThat was a good report card. He had a bunch of kind of stupid stumbles last week -- missed the funeral for a officer died in the line of duty. He sealed, you know, ugly headlines about Reuben Charles, who's running his transition, hasn’t really gotten ahead of that. But he gave him credit.

SHERWOODThe party at the Love.

DEBONISThe party, right. The party at Love with the donor of which owes the district a significant amount of money. But he did give him credit which is, you know, I think, well earned that he handled the biggest question he had after the campaign that being education reform rather deftly. In that, Michele Rhee is gone, you know, but he's got the next best thing in her right hand.

SHERWOODKaya Henderson.

DEBONISThe right hand woman. So question is, how will the sort of relationship develop and is this someone that Vince Gray is gonna be able to trust and give the full time role to? And I think there's actually that -- there's a very good chance on that.

SHERWOODShe is.

NNAMDITom Sherwood, I saw a response to the reports about the event at the Love Nightclub that said, so what? The new mayor or the mayor-elect has to check out every single place he's invited to by Alan?

SHERWOODYes.

NNAMDIEvery single place he invented...

DEBONISWell.

NNAMDI...to see exactly...

SHERWOODYes.

NNAMDI...what the financial situation is of the people who are involved in (unintelligible)

DEBONISHe was -- he wouldn't...

NNAMDICan't he go any place without people like you looking into the financial records (all talking at once)

DEBONISThat Vince would not have had to do a deep dig on this one, okay?

SHERWOODWell, first -- well, here's -- if you're trying to make this one city, I would recommend and that people in the Gray campaign recommended it to me that maybe you don't go to a nightclub where there's a weapon's policy posted on the front door.

DEBONISRight.

NNAMDISo you're suggesting that before, say, a councilmember like Jack Evans walks into the studio, he ought to look at our bottom line, look at our budget, make sure the station doesn't owe any money to anybody, make sure that we've been responding to all of our members before he agrees to do an interview here?

SHERWOODWell, no. Should we arrest him when -- for running a red light because, you know, thousands of people do them. We just let people run red lights. The fact is this club has a notorious history.

DEBONISOh, yeah. All you really had to do is read the papers on this one. You know he could've solved this very easily. Instead of calling it a victory party, you could have called it a Marc Barnes paid down his debt...

SHERWOODThey're not -- actually...

DEBONIS...cash bar.

SHERWOOD...I was told at the convention center in our hotel thing that the place is now been sold. I don't know who bought it though. But the fact is...

DEBONISAnother, yeah...

SHERWOOD...if you want the ministers come your election night party, you don't wanna come to a place that's lined with booze. If you want the family people to come, you want them to come with places not in an industrial part of town that's hard to get to. If you want the people to come your party as one city, then have it at the Carnegie Library, which I suggested they could have had.

NNAMDIAnd if you wanna gather your family around the radio to have them listen to a show that is a family show even though it discusses the dirty issue of politics, this is the place to do it. And joining us in the studio now is Jack Evans.

SHERWOODI had more to say on that subject. (laugh)

NNAMDIHe -- thank goodness. D.C...

DEBONIS(laugh) All worked up over there.

NNAMDIJack Evans is D.C. councilmember of Ward 2. He is also the chairman of the Committee on Finance and Revenue. Jack Evans, thank you very much for joining us.

MR. JACK EVANSOh, thank you, Kojo. I'm pleased to be here. I can't get enough.

NNAMDICongratulations on your recent nuptials.

EVANSThank you.

NNAMDIThe hotel for the Convention Center is finally going up. They broke ground on Wednesday. You said it could have been built faster if you and a colleague went over there and put down a brick each day. Does this mean that the Convention Center took too long to get going for your liking? (laugh)

EVANSIt certainly did. Nineteen years in the making. Both the Convention Center and the hotel took a long, long time. There were...

NNAMDIWhy? Is it...

EVANSMany, many -- the Convention Center itself, because there was a lot controversy around it, the financing and all of that, putting the deal together took a long time. And then the hotel, even more so, because there were constant changes about whether we should build it on that site, which should build on the -- old Convention Center site, getting the land, we had the whole Kingdon Gold issue and then putting the financing together when the market collapse and then the JBG lawsuit. So it was one thing after another that got in the way of that getting done. It should have opened realistically when the convention started.

NNAMDIIf you have questions on the city's finances in any way shape or form, now is the time to call, 800-433-8850. Send us an e-mail to kojo@wamu.org, a tweet, @kojoshow, or go to our website, kojoshow.org and ask a comment -- make a comment or ask a question there. Don't let the bonus on Sherwood dominate the conversation.

DEBONISCouncilmember, just returning the Convention Center really quick, to look at the big picture, we're in a competitive environment where the convention center has to compete against not only in other cities, but now we got National Harbor right over the district line. One of the things that get said fairly often is that, you know, this Convention Center, when it opened, was too small. Do you think that sure number to you -- just -- do you think that it's performing well, that it's making enough money and, you know, it's covering its bonds and that it's, you know, throwing off enough money to benefit the city?

EVANSAll right. It's not too small. It's a Convention Center that was built to accommodate the market that we're going for. We're not Chicago or...

SHERWOODOrlando.

EVANS...Atlanta or even Orlando, who go after much larger conventions. That wasn't the goal. So this Convention Center is good for what we need it. And it is performing very well. But keep in mind it doesn't generate the money for the bonds. The money comes from the hotel tax.

DEBONISHmm.

EVANSAnd that is what services that debt on the Convention Center. The Convention Center itself is to bring people here who stay in our hotels, eating in our restaurants and shop in our stores. And it's been very successful with that. What the problem we were running into that was when these larger conventions when they come, they wanna stay at the Convention Center. And they don't wanna say at the Washington Hilton or at the Marriott over in Wardman Park. The cab ride is too far. And so we really needed this hotel to accommodate those type of conventions, and now we'll have it in 2014.

SHERWOODWill the -- would this -- hotel is gonna be on the northwest corner of 9th and Mass Avenue, right across the street from Convention Center.

EVANSRight.

SHERWOODDoes it impact -- I was surprised that several of the community leaders in the neighborhood were there praising their stay.

EVANSAbsolutely.

SHERWOODI'm usually expecting protests...

EVANSRight. Exactly.

SHERWOODI was kind of disoriented.

EVANSNo, they're very excited about it because when that corner then is developed as you march up 9th Street, what we predict will happen is many of the establishments going at 9th Street will also start to be renovated and even on the 7th Street side -- over at the 7th and New York Avenue. A number of those buildings are slated when the economy starts getting (unintelligible)

SHERWOODOne thing definite of this is the jobs -- these -- there is...

EVANSYes.

SHERWOOD...specific law, and Michael Brown authored the law, it says that 60 percent of the job for the construction in the -- of this hotel have to go to district citizens. Will the city enforce that rule?

EVANSYes. We will. We're getting much better reinforcing, and then I think so much attention has been paid to it now. And if you go back to the baseball stadium, the much maligned baseball stadium, we had a lot of reports they -- even the final report coming out, that went back and looked at what was done. And they actually met all the goals that were set for it when that was done. So we need a similar type of approach with the hotel.

NNAMDIObviously, there is gonna be a lot of hope that this will revitalize the Shaw neighborhood in the area. I am surprised that they're not -- that there's not more pushback that this is going to simply increase gentrification and push poor people out of neighborhoods in which they have historically or traditionally lived.

EVANSWell, we're not seeing that at all, Kojo, just the opposite. Not only is this project going on in Shaw but we have the O Street Market. We have Kelsey Gardens. We have Parcel 42, and then the United Negro College Fund, used to be the Radio One project. And so, as you marched up 7 to 9th Street on -- in all of these areas, we're seeing an enormous amount of development that is actually going forward. And people are very excited about it because it'll bring services to the community that frankly aren't there.

SHERWOODBring jobs.

EVANSAnd jobs.

NNAMDIWell, here is what Tom Sherwood and I would like to know. What will this mean for parking...

EVANSYeah.

NNAMDI...and for traffic in the area? (laugh)

EVANSWell, it's always gonna be difficult with parking and traffic. The Convention Center itself...

NNAMDINever used to be difficult. (laugh)

EVANSWell, when there was nothing there, it was easy. Actually...

NNAMDIExactly right.

EVANS...the Convention Center site used to be a giant parking lot. So we've translated it into an economic bonanza. But it's always gonna be difficult. Parking is always gonna be hard in that neighborhood. And all the projects should do a parking, an underground parking being built, but it'll never be enough to accommodate all the cars. And so the subway is right there and that's -- the hope is a lot of people will use the subway as well.

DEBONISI think their question -- I mean, my sort of question was will there be a gigantic gaping hole in the ground like there was with the convention center.

EVANSYes, there will be. We have to go down as far to 110 feet underground.

SHERWOODThat's gonna be...

EVANSIt's gonna be more underground than above ground when we're done.

SHERWOODIt was either Mr. Gladstone or Mr. Marriott himself talked about he's gonna build essentially two buildings.

EVANSYeah.

SHERWOODHe's gonna build one underground for all the 100,000 square feet of meeting space...

EVANSMeeting space. Right. And parking and all that.

SHERWOOD...parking and all that. And then they're gonna build a hotel on top.

EVANSThat's exactly right. And that connects...

SHERWOODAnd what that...

EVANS...underground to the convention center.

SHERWOODAnd who was it that saved the nice, old, brick building on the corner? That's really terrific.

EVANSYes, we saved that. Yeah. That was owned by the Union, so we purchased it from the Union and that (unintelligible)

SHERWOODWhat is this? Is it labor? What Union?

DEBONISIt's the AFL building.

EVANSWe got to (unintelligible) which one it was. One of those -- the original AFL building.

SHERWOODIt's a terrific building if you like architectural building.

EVANSAnd it's incorporated into the project itself.

NNAMDIWe've got a breaking news update as reported by ABC 7. Federal agents have handcuffed Prince George's County Executive Jack Johnson...

DEBONISWow.

NNAMDI...after raiding his home and offices on Friday. Law enforcement sources say the FBI's corruption task force has been investigating Johnson for some time. Jack Johnson's term ends on December 6th. This story will be followed up, of course, on WAMU 88.5 news.

SHERWOODI was like -- I was able to talk about that, but we were at channel four working on that even as I was coming over here. And it's unfortunate Jack Johnson, you know, who did -- who abruptly decided not to run for Congress, not to run for anything else. And we wonder if this is all connected to that.

EVANSWow.

NNAMDIWe'll be hearing more about that I am sure, but it is certainly a shocker for a lot of Prince George's County residents and people in the area generally. But back to the Politics Hour. Here is David in Washington D.C. David, you are on the air. Go ahead, please.

DAVIDHi, Kojo. I love your show. I'm a small business owner on U Street. And with tax rates so high for businesses, and as a result, less and less small businesses not being able to afford to open up. Is there any plan in the council to lower the taxes for businesses and property?

EVANSActually, we did. Chairman Gray and I got to pass legislation that lowered the property taxes for small businesses. Instead of paying $1.85 per $100 of assessed value, it starts out at $1.65 for the first $3 million of assessed value on buildings. That's a small help to many of the small businesses who happen to own their own property. If you were also renting in a building where that takes place, you're supposed to get some relief as well. But I have worked with the chairman for years now and we're open to any ideas that can help small businesses because of the difficulty we know you have in the city.

NNAMDIThe city has got $200 million shortfall. You have said, quoting here, "that the city cannot tax its way into a balanced budget," that means cuts.

EVANSIt does mean cuts. And what I -- just to follow up on that. Right now, our tax revenues in the city are flat, if -- and they're actually going down. We have a $50 million less in sales, 50 million less in income tax. And so when your expenditures are increasing and your taxes are flat, and if you increase your taxes to meet the expenditures this year, you're just gonna have to do it again next year unless you could bring down your expenditures side, because right now the economy is such that we do not see an increase in our revenues in the next couple of years. And so that's...

SHERWOODNext couple of years?

EVANSNext couple of years. Yeah.

SHERWOODWhoa.

NNAMDIBut you've called for across the board cuts, including social services, which account for a third of the budget. Here is the hard part. Which social services would you cut? How can you take a strategic approach to cutting social services without getting everybody voted out of office?

EVANS(laugh) Well, you certainly -- Kojo, as you know, our money is spent in three areas, 80 percent of the entire budget: social services, public education and public safety, and then debt service makes up another 12 percent. So that's where we spend our money. So if you're going to cut, you have to cut in those areas, and so people have to decide, is it gonna be social services, education or the police department? And what I recommended last year, which was not accepted by the council, is to do an across the board 4 percent cut. That will get you the money that you need in order to balance the budget. That was rejected.

EVANSSo, the answer to your question on the social service side is to sit down with the agency directors and say, where is it that you can find money that we can save, even though it's going to affect people, so we can balance this budget. I personally am not overseeing these agents. He said I can say, aha, that's the place where we need to save the money. That's the job of the director of the agency. And we need to get that kind of information.

SHERWOODYou didn't vote for the current budget we're in. You said that was -- it was not realistic and the council members and Mayor Fenty at that time didn't do it right. And you've got $175 million budget cuts you've got to do before January 2nd. Where is that gonna go?

EVANSYeah. And again, I voted against the budget for the first time in 19 years back in April and May because I knew what we were doing was not going to help the city. We ended up in $175 million shortfall and at the same time spent down another $300 million out of our savings account to the point where we have no money left that we can use in our savings account. We just postponed the inevitable to get past the election. And so now we're back in the soup with this 175 million. And the answer, Tom, is we have to cut $175 million or some portions thereof out of those three areas I talked about.

DEBONISCouncil member, just looking at political reality though, it seems to me that you were -- crying a -- you were fighting a lonely fight on, you know, fighting against these tax -- fighting against tax hikes. The mayor-elect and the chairman-elect have both refused to rule them out. Your colleague from Ward 6 has basically said, who oversees the human services committee, he says, listen. I'm willing to cut, but I'm only willing to cut unless we do something on the revenue side.

SHERWOODThat's Tommy Wells.

EVANSTommy Wells. Right.

DEBONISAnd I think that, you know, basically, if you look at what Vince Gray and Kwame Brown have said, not ruling out tax cuts, I think that's tantamount to saying, we're going to hike taxes. Is there anything you can do, you know, accepting that reality, to sort of steer them in ways that will be less harmful economically to the District's, you know, future here?

NNAMDIHe's not accepting that reality.

EVANSI don't see that because we've already raised our tax rate. See, we talk antiseptically about raising taxes, but then you say, which one do you wanna raise?

DEBONISRight. Well, this is what I'm asking.

EVANSOur sales tax is the highest in the region at 6 percent. So you wanna go above everybody else. And, really, we already saw a 50 million-dollar drop in the sales tax. You wanna go higher, you'll see a bigger drop. Our property tax on the commercial side is $1.85. It's almost a dollar above everybody else. So you can't do that. On the residential side, if you wanna really raise people's property taxes on the residential side, then you will have an outcry.

SHERWOODWe raised the cigarette tax, didn't we? And the revenue dropped.

DEBONISWhat about getting rid of the -- you know, people...

EVANSThe revenue dropped. And then -- into the income tax. And so that's -- and so this idea of raising the top level from 8.5 to the highest in the region, if not the highest in the nation, will bring you a grand total of maybe 30 or $40 million. Okay. So let's do that. So we're still short $135 million. You cannot...

DEBONISWell, that's 130 -- I mean that's 30 or $40 million...

EVANSOkay. Well, then...

DEBONIS...that's gonna house people or that's going to...

EVANSThen where are we gonna get the other 130...

DEBONIS…pay police officers?

EVANSNot, but you're -- it begs the question. All right. Let's say we do that. We're short of 135 million. Now tell me where we're gonna cut. I mean, help me get to the cutting...

SHERWOODWhat about the millionaire's tax?

NNAMDIThat...

DEBONISWell, that's what we're talking about.

EVANSRight. That gets even less. That gives you about $20 million.

SHERWOOD30 million, okay.

DEBONISWell, there's also, I mean, property tax loopholes. I mean, there's...

EVANSThere really aren't, though, Mike. There aren't those -- we have really closed all that stuff.

DEBONISWell, we've, you know, we've -- you know, the Council is not allowed to increase property tax rates...

SHERWOODWell, I think what you...

DEBONIS...to raise what the actual levels of…

EVANSOh, sure. But again...

SHERWOODLet's hire more ticket writers.

EVANSThen you're talking about raising residential property taxes.

DEBONISWe are, yeah.

EVANSAnd you could do that. You -- listen, you can tax your way out of this. You can take our property tax, our income tax and sales tax and raise it high enough to get $175 million.

DEBONISRight.

EVANSTwo years from now, you will have no revenue left because people will figure out a way of not paying it because they -- people are taxed to death in the city right now. Go to California. Go to a place as New York, who tried that method, and it just didn't work.

DEBONISWell, California -- Californian voters...

NNAMDIWell, allow me to bring the listeners in on the conversation. 800-433-8850 is the number to call. We've got a $200 million shortfall in the District of Columbia budget. How do you believe we should balance the budget? Increasing taxes or cutting across the board? 800-433-8850. Here is Josh in Shaw. Josh, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.

JOSHI'm sorry. Hello?

NNAMDIYeah, Josh. You're on the air. Go ahead, please.

JOSHOkay. My question for the councilmember is -- I'm working on starting a food truck in the District, and my understanding is that the councilmember is against adding food trucks to the city. And I was wondering why he was taking that stand, considering they're a new revenue stream for the city. It's building more small businesses, and it's the first step in many of us opening up brick and mortar businesses in the city and being a contributable part to the city coffers.

EVANSI have not taken a position, so your information is incorrect on my against -- being against food trucks. I have not taken a position on that. I have seen both sides of the story where the brick and mortar restaurants currently don't like the food trucks coming in and competing against them. On the other side, the point you made is a very good one, too. So we have not -- actually in the zoning and the vending regulations that I've been talking to Councilmember Bowser about, we have not put anything in there that bans the food trucks. But we are gonna have to address that issue. And I think one of the points is, say you're selling lobster rolls. You can't park your food truck in front of a lobster roll restaurant. And maybe that's how you deal with this.

SHERWOODThese are super sized vending -- we're used to the hotdog carts on the corner...

EVANSRight. Right, right, right.

SHERWOOD...and things like that. We're talking about, essentially, rolling restaurants.

EVANSYeah, exactly.

SHERWOODYeah.

EVANSAnd so we have to figure out how to deal with that.

DEBONISLet me be a voice in favor of the food truck people. You know, for the longest time...

NNAMDIYes, if this is to be considered a major city.

DEBONISFor the longest time, you know, all you have -- the only thing you could buy in the street is a hotdog.

EVANSHotdog, right.

DEBONISIf you go to any other city in this country...

NNAMDISee that?

DEBONIS...you go to Los Angeles, you have wonderful taco trucks on, you know, on every corner. You know, you have Korean barbecue. You know, there has been this artificial limit to free enterprise in the food truck realm. I mean, don't you think, councilmember, that there needs to be some liberalization of this?

NNAMDIAs I said, if you want it to be considered a major city.

DEBONISThis...

EVANSYeah.

DEBONISAs a avid consumer of food stuffs, as anyone who knows me.

EVANS(laugh) And I think, Mike, that's what we're looking at, is how do we do this in a way that doesn't harm the restaurants we currently have, but allows the food trucks to exist because they're very popular? And so we're always finding ourselves in this balance of how do we -- it goes back to, like, the vending -- the people selling the, you know -- I don't know -- the jackets that have whatever...

DEBONISLet me say -- councilmember, I think...

EVANSAnd outside of the -- the polo shirts outside the polo store. Yeah. You got to figure that out.

DEBONISI think we need to -- I think someone needs to tell the, you know, say, the Restaurant Association Metropolitan Washington, which is one of the lobby groups opposing this. I think someone needs to tell them, you know, food trucks can pay dues to them, too, you know, if you allow them.

EVANSAnd, see, you hit on a good point, too. A long time ago, John Wilson and I -- this is the early 1990s -- put in place a regulation of how these vending pay taxes. And they have, like, paid $1,500 a year because we could never figure out how much sales tax they were getting, and most of them weren't paying any at all. Now if we're gonna go down this route, we got to figure out how to honestly tax a food truck the same way we tax a restaurant and not just pay $1,500 a year. So that's what we have to figure out, too.

NNAMDIYou proposed a freeze on education spending. What would that mean for education reform?

EVANSWhat it would mean is that the money -- amount of money we're spending now, which is an enormous amount in education from year to year, they would have to live with that same amount of money. So it would mean they have -- what they have today, they're gonna have tomorrow.

DEBONISFor that.

EVANSAnd again, education reformers believe the more money we spend, the better school system we'll have. If that was the case, we should have one of the best school systems in America, and we don't. And so all of us would love to spend more money. But if we're gonna be fiscally responsible, we have to live within the means. So I'm not recommending cutting education. I'm recommending spending the same amount of money from year to year.

DEBONISRight. But spending the same amount, you know, of course, is tantamount to a -- you know, you'd have to lay off people because the cost of paying people every year rises a certain amount. And that would mean that, you know, do we put the mayor in a position to firing teachers? And we all know what happened the last time that happened.

EVANSYeah. No, it's a good point. There are built-in costs. Now, if you freeze everything, if you freeze teachers' salaries and you freeze all of that kind of stuff, I think you could minimize what it is that you have to cut. But again, you just can't have everything.

SHERWOODWell...

EVANSYou can't have everything status quo and hope that this is gonna work.

SHERWOODI don't wanna get bogged down on the capital budget for schools, because the city has spent hundreds of millions of dollars making the schools much better than they ever were in the history of the school.

EVANSYeah.

SHERWOODIs there a point where the city can stop spending quite so much money on the capital budget or is that gonna continue to go?

EVANSWell, the capital budget, remember, is not -- it's borrowed money.

SHERWOODIt's not operating.

DEBONISIt's not operating. We're borrowing that money and then that goes into the debt service, and we have the 12 percent cap on our debt service. And we're about 10-5 now. And as we go out into 20-14, that's when we hit the 12 percent cap. So I'm less worried about that.

SHERWOODWe're gonna control -- we're gonna control board back?

EVANSNo, no, no.

SHERWOODWe're gonna do something radical?

EVANSNo, we're not gonna do anything like that...

NNAMDIHere...

EVANS...because we're gonna do what needs to be done.

NNAMDIHere's Leslie in Washington, D.C. Leslie, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.

LESLIEThanks, Kojo. I just heard one of your guests say that property tax loopholes have been closed. For seven and a half years, I have lived next door to a building which is empty and deteriorating day by day, that's boarded up. Right now, there's trash all out in front of it. Someone has camped out there. And according to the public records, the man who owns that building pays less in property tax than I do and has actually received tax exemptions, five in a 12-year period from my understanding...

EVANSLeslie, what's the address of the place?

LESLIE315 G Street Northeast.

EVANSOkay. We'll certainly turn that in.

LESLIEIt is a tower.

EVANSBut the point is it's not that necessary a loophole. Obviously, this person is gaming the system. If you have a piece of vacant property, it should be taxed at -- instead of 83 cents, it should be taxed with $5. And if it's bladed, meaning which it sounds like you're talking about…

LESLIEYes.

EVANS...it should be taxed at $10. And so we'll have the DCRA take a look at it and appropriately fix the taxes.

LESLIEWell, they are taking a look at it, finally.

EVANSOkay.

LESLIEBut I've been making phone calls like this for five years.

EVANSOkay.

LESLIEAnd, you know, for many those years he pays less than I do.

NNAMDINo wonder you weren't reluctant to give out your address on the air.

EVANSWell, I -- all I can say for those who are listening, call my office, 724-8058, if nobody else will listen to you. We will get that information and get it to the appropriate people to try and get these things characterized correctly.

NNAMDILeslie, thank you very much for your call. Here is Willa in Northeast Washington. Willa, your turn. Hi, Willa.

WILLAYes. I was considering -- wondering if you had considered requiring staff that work in the District of Columbia to live in the District of Columbia maybe 15s or -- and above, because I know that we have probably 75 percent of our staff that work in the District of Columbia that live in Virginia or Maryland. So...

EVANSYes. I have introduced, on a constant basis, something called a residency requirement. And what it is, it says if you work for the District government, you must live in Washington, D.C. Whenever that bill gets to Congress, because all of our laws have to go through Congress, it is struck down immediately. And it is struck down, generally, by the people who are usually the most support of us, and that would be the Steinheuers and everyone else who represents the surrounding jurisdictions.

EVANSAnd the reason being is many of our workers, and I think it's over 50 percent, 75 percent of our police officers, fire fighters, teachers live in Prince George's County in Maryland. And they pay their taxes there. And it's a huge tax base for that state. And so there's no way in the world that the surrounding jurisdictions are gonna allow us to have a residency requirement, and it's absolutely unfair and ridiculous.

NNAMDIExcept that we had an individual on the broadcast last week who was a -- is a high official in the District of Columbia who is yet to reveal his driver's license in the District of Columbia.

SHERWOODOh, no. Peter Nickles, you thought?

DEBONISOh, yeah.

SHERWOODNo, Peter Nickles is actually...

EVANSPeter Nickles, he'll show you his driver's license.

SHERWOODNo, in fact, he did have a -- he rented a space downtown and he switched his income tax records and voting records and license. He got a -- he became a legal resident of city. And I think by Jan. 2, he'll be back in (unintelligible)

DEBONISOh, yeah. He'll absolutely be back.

EVANSBut if we had a commuter tax and a residency requirement in this city, we would not have financial problem.

SHERWOODWe could slash the taxes.

NNAMDICan we...

EVANSWe could slash the taxes and pay for everything, but...

NNAMDIWhich brings me to the John in Fairfax, Va. John, you're -- we're running out of time, please make your question or comment brief.

JOHNGreat. Yeah. And, I mean, you just mentioned the commuter tax. I was wondering how seriously we've looked in the past into installing something similar to London with the -- I mean, the amount of cameras DCRA already has, it seems like it'd be pretty easy to identify the people coming in and out of the city on a regular basis.

SHERWOODCongress blocks it.

NNAMDIWell, we've only looked at this, oh, maybe about 500,000 times.

EVANSI know, I know.

DEBONISEvery politician (unintelligible)

SHERWOODDo we have time to talk about the Redskins or what (unintelligible)

EVANSWe've gone to court over it. We've done everything. There's a...

NNAMDIYay, we've got a minute.

EVANSOkay.

SHERWOODCongress who killed -- what about the Washington Redskins. Can they come back and build a stadium at RFK? What does this stands about?

EVANSI am big proponent of that. The Washington Redskins are in the county and they have a lease that keeps them there until 2027.

SHERWOODCan you pay off that lease? (unintelligible)

EVANSBut it's gonna always...

SHERWOODI think Prince George's wants that money.

EVANSYes. You can always figure out a way around it. And what I would propose is that on the RFK Stadium site, we build 110,000-seat, retractable room -- excuse me -- retractable roof stadium and bring the Redskins back. The -- always the issue is it's about a $2 billion project. Guess who pays for it? And hopefully...

SHERWOODDan Snyder, the owner.

EVANSYeah. Hopefully, over the next years, we will have conversations with the Redskins to make that happen.

DEBONISWhen is the last time you had a conversation with the Redskin?

EVANSPeriodically, of and on. I talk to different people, so within months.

NNAMDII'm afraid that's all the time we have. Reminding you of the news update, federal agents have handcuffed Prince George's County Executive Jack Johnson after raiding his home and offices on Friday. Law enforcement sources say the FBI's corruption taskforce has been investigating Johnson for some time. Jack Evans, thank you for joining us.

EVANSThank you, Kojo.

NNAMDIMike DeBonis, good to see you.

DEBONISThanks.

NNAMDITom...

DEBONISMay we all stay free of handcuffs.

NNAMDITom Sherwood, always a pleasure.

SHERWOODHave a great weekend.

NNAMDIWell, with the possible exception of Sherwood with the handcuffs.

NNAMDII'm Kojo Nnamdi.

SHERWOODNo handcuffing me.