Washington Wants Its Quarter

You know how the mint is putting out quarters featuring all of the 50 states. Now the territories will also get a quarter, as will Washington, D.C. The District of Columbia turned in a proposed design that featured the slogan “No taxation without representation.”

See, the District of Columbia has no representatives in Congress, and yet its population has to pay taxes, which violates that old revolutionary principle. Many D.C. activists go so far as to demand statehood, so that the Milwaukee-sized city of 600,000 would have as many senators as California. (My solution is to shrink the district to just cover the federal buildings, so that all of the residential areas are in Maryland or Virginia. And if that is too radical, though I suspect eliminating Washington would make for a popular political cause, we could just make a provision allowing residents to register to vote in either of those states.) So resentful Washingtonians put that slogan on their license plates and want it on their quarters.

The mint, unfortunately, vetoed the slogan. Setting aside D.C.’s claims, wouldn’t it be cool to have a pocketful of quarters that say, “No taxation without representation”?

(On serious issues, my policy positions are based on my deeply-held convictions. On less important issues, I go by whatever position is funniest.)