Bizarro World WashPost criticizes tax breaks for D.C. United stadium, calls for slowdown on vote

Check it out! The Washington Post editorial board, which usually has a hard time finding a stadium deal it doesn’t like, has actually called for the D.C. council to slow down on its D.C. United stadium plan and rethink the tax breaks that are set to go along with it:

Before blithely rubber-stamping the breaks, as has been the council’s tendency when it comes to providing this benefit to developers, council members should determine if there is a real need. As the D.C. Fiscal Policy Institute pointed out in a recent blog post, “Every dollar in tax breaks for DC United is a dollar not going into the city’s coffers that could be used for education, public safety, health care, or other services.”

Now, maybe this is just the Post going along with the current political winds in city government, what with the council president openly calling for pulling back $8.4 million in sales tax rebates, at least. And yeah, they did run the editorial on the day after Thanksgiving, when maybe 12 people total read it. (The council is set to vote on the revamped United stadium deal tomorrow, so today would have been a good day to run the editorial, you’d think.) Still, it’s a significant shift from last month’s “can’t afford to dawdle,” and it favorably quotes the D.C. Fiscal Policy Institute, of all people. Mr. Serious Concerns must have been out of the office for the holiday.