Mint rejects D.C. quarter

The District of Columbia has a slogan on its license plates: "Taxation Without Representation." Taxation without representation is what's suffered daily by the residents of the nation's capital - who must pay all federal taxes and are subject to the Selective Service System, but still do not get any representation in Congress (except one non-voting delegate). The United States is probably unique among modern federal republics in denying residents of the national capital the representation that the rest of the country gets.

This is especially vexing because an activist federal court ruled several years ago that D.C. can't have a payroll tax that's levied primarily on commuters who work in the city but live in wealthy suburbs in nearby states. This ruling was cobbled together from thin air. So D.C. isn't even allowed to pass a tax that other cities can!

"Taxation Without Representation" should've been my rallying cry when I had my first job and had to commute out to a wealthier suburb and pay a payroll tax to it. Much of this moolah effectively went to services for hostile former schoolmates who were spending their later high school years goofing off and chewing bubble gum while I toiled for them. If I had to pay a payroll tax to a relatively affluent suburb, why shouldn't suburbanites have to pay a payroll tax to a central city?

Now that D.C. has finally been allowed to be a part of the hugely successful state quarters program, the District has submitted several designs for its commemorative 25-cent piece. However, the U.S. Mint has rejected these designs because they include D.C.'s incisive slogan.

The reason? It's "too controversial." The Mint apparently thinks it's too much of a political statement.

The irony here is that the Mint's decision proves D.C. lacks representation, despite its high federal tax burden. You can bet that if some state submitted a political message for its coin that agreed with the ruling party's stance, it would not have been rejected. You can bet every quarter in the entire set and then some. I can almost guarantee it.

(Source: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2008/02/27/national/a164745S12.DTL)