D.C. Vouchers Aren’t Vouchers
For a while there were a lot of SUVs with Texas plates and dark-tinted windows parked outside but things are quieter these days. Still, they’ve expanded steadily over the years. First they took over the adjacent building and turned into a dormitory for their interns. (In the summer they wear the preppiest clothes imaginable; it’s like a rainbow sherbet explosion, with bow ties.) Then they started a huge multi-year project to retrofit the building’s brick facade in columns and grey limestone. They’ve re-sodded and then re-ripped up the small front lawn on at least three separate occasions, including the last few weeks, closing the sidewalk and forcing pedestrians out into heavy rush hour traffic. It’s inconvenient and annoying but I take comfort in the fact that it also looks really expensive, and as such represents money not spent on pursuing delusions of imperial conquest or preventing poor people from getting life-saving medical procedures. Maybe if they’d gone with a cheaper grade of stone cladding or less polish on the brass bell logo embedded above the entrance, they could have peeled a few votes off the health care bill. This thought pleases me as I dodge homicidal taxis during the walk home.