D.C. Busted: For months, budget experts and politicians have been warning of how bad the District's fiscal situation is, and how much would have to be cut from expenditures (or raised in new taxes) to fill a $450 million gap in this year's balance sheet. Now it turns out the real shortfall is $600 million instead. The solution is obvious—start charging a tax on commuters from Maryland and Virginia who spend most of their weeks here and take all their income home with them—but unfortunately, that's not an option. (Thanks, Congress!) Look for a municipal bake sale soon, featuring $40,000 cupcakes; if it's sponsored by those folks with the TLC show, people are sure to buy 'em. -4

Run, Rudy, Run: And now, time for today's installment of completely arbitrary national rankings ginned up to get Web traffic by magazine editors. The latest news: D.C. lands at fifth on a list of the rudest cities in America compiled by Travel + Leisure. Their evidence of our obnoxious nature? Harry S Truman said to get a dog if you want a friend in Washington. The list is clearly wrong, regardless; Philadelphia came in third. Having lived there for more than six years, we can't really trust any rudeness ranking Philly doesn't top. -1

All Your Tax Are Belong To Us: A little-known side effect of being a U.S. colony is that technically, every dollar the D.C. government spends is appropriated to the city by Congress; local tax revenues are turned over to the U.S. Treasury, then given back to the District, in an accounting gimmick that makes about as much sense as, well, denying meaningful representation in the national legislature to residents of the nation's capital does. And so it is that the new Republican House has decided to try to ban District authorities from spending any money—even money that comes from local income or sales taxes—to pay for abortions. Passing laws that only affect a city where none of your constituents live is, clearly, the American dream. -3

Millions and Millions: George Washington University typically finds itself near the top of the "America's most expensive colleges" lists. But now it's clear that all that tuition money is good for something, after all: It can buy you luck! A GW alumnus, Gilbert Cisneros, and his wife Jacki won $266 million in a California lottery drawing last May, and they've given GW $1.1 million out of their haul. Presumably, soon you'll be able to buy lottery tickets with your GWorld card. +1

Yesterday's Needle rating: 55 Today's score: -7 Friday bonus: +2 Today's Needle rating: 50

Photo from Wikimedia, Creative Commons license

This morning, a bureaucrat from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control , the nation's preeminent public health agency, was summoned to Capitol Hill, where she was, in all likelihood, reamed out by members of a House subcommittee.

And with good reason, according to congressional investigators, who say CDC officials knowingly mislead District residents about the dangers of drinking the tap water in 2004, when it became public that several neighborhoods around the city were experiencing record-breaking lead levels.

CDC officials rushed to release a soothing report insisting that the amount of lead in the water did not pose a health threat, though they knew the findings were based on misleadingly incomplete data, according to WaPo's reporting on the investigation in today's paper. The Centers also failed to publicize a more comprehensive analysis that later showed children in the effected neighborhoods were more than twice as likely than other kids to have dangerous amounts of lead in their blood.

Since House officials haven't posted a podcast and it would have taken way to much effort to venture over to the Rayburn House Office Building, one can only imagine the grilling received by Dr. Robin M. Ikeda, who testified for the CDC at this morning's hearing of a House Science and Technology subcommittee. A quick perusal of her written testimony shows Ikeda defended her agency’s response to the lead controversy, saying: "CDC’s initial reports did not understate the magnitude of the problem."

Also in attendance was Marc Edwards, the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University professor, whose study of the lead in the D.C. water supply provided the fodder for the Post’s reporting and the subsequent uproar. He had a pretty different take on the Centers' performance: He called it “a monumental public health fiasco” that affected tens of thousands of D.C. homes.

Exposure to lead can literally make children dumber: According to the EPA, scientists have linked the effects of lead on the brain with lowered IQ in children, among other things.

Besides wondering how many IQ points D.C. youths lost forever, the episode raises questions about the believability of the CDC, the agency that leads the federal government's analysis and response to a wide range of public health threats – everything from combating swine flu and biological weapons to suggesting guidelines on pH levels in public swimming pools.

This hit to the CDC’s credibility – its performance after Hurricane Katrina was also discussed at today’s hearing – comes during a week filled with bad news on the public health front, much of it the kind that suggests our lifestyle is slowly killing us.

Diane Sawyer kicked off a week of gloomy headlines with hand-wringing on ABC World News Monday night over a study linking ADHD to pesticides found on strawberries, peaches and other produce. According to the researchers, children who test positive for the chemicals are twice as likely to have ADHD symptoms.

And, that's only one of the scary side effects linked to pesticides; Let's not forget about the Potomac River's inter-sex fish problem.

Researchers in Germany, meanwhile, announced that people living in cities tend to have higher blood pressure.

Another bummer: Cologne may lower men's sperm count. So the very same toilet water meant to signal a man's virility might actually be stripping him of it.

In other news to be filed under "counterproductive," suntan lotion is contributing to the death of coral reefs. So all those snorkelers who lather on the lotion before taking a dip are helping to kill off a main attraction to going into the water. Sheesh!

The final tally – webcast live on C-SPAN – was 219 to 212, largely along party lines, though more than three-dozen Democrats defected to vote against the legislation. 

Jason Chaffetz, a Republican about to take Utah's 3rd district congressional seat, says he's not going to support efforts to give D.C. a vote in Congress. So says the Deseret News.

Yeah, yeah—GOP'er against District voting rights; no news there. Why should anyone care what this guy thinks?

Well, the former BYU placekicker is the first member of the Utah delegation to come out against the so-called Davis solution (after now-retired Va. Rep. Tom Davis), which seeks to appease Republican misgivings over handing Democrats an extra House vote by giving the GOP another vote in Utah, which was narrowly screwed out of an extra seat in the last reapportionment. He also replaces a fellow Republican, Chris Cannon, who had supported the Davis bill. (Chaffetz challenged Cannon from the right, running mainly on immigration and garnering George W. Bush's endorsement.)

Chaffetz proffers the constitutional excuse for opposing a congressional vote for the District: "I recognize that taxation without representation is fundamentally unfair. But what should we do? I believe it is possible to give residents of Washington, D.C., a voice without violating the Constitution," he tells the Utah paper, advocating for retrocession. "Giving Maryland an additional seat in the House of Representatives raises no Constitutional questions and gives D.C. residents the representation they seek."

Hmm. So this guy's a constitutional law scholar? A judge, maybe? At least a lawyer? History buff?

Nope. Corporate PR guy.

Flickr photo by wickenden