On March 3, 2025, Executive Director Yesim Sayin was quoted in The Washington Post:
Taken together, “this budget season is going to be very difficult,” said Yesim Sayin, an economist who leads the D.C. Policy Center.
“Cuts are absolutely unavoidable,” she said. “The city’s approach has always been, ‘Oh, there’s always money. We can always find a way to pay for things.’ But I think the hard decisions are coming.”
Sayin, the economist, described the nerve-racking nature of the uncertain Medicaid situation — coupled with the uncertainties posed by Trump’s federal policy agenda — as akin to “walking on eggshells, on top of a minefield, on top of a volcano.”
“We are just realizing how precarious our hold is on our own decisions in the city,” she said.
Read More: D.C.’s revenue forecast takes $1 billion turn after Trump’s federal job cuts
Additional reading: Laying the foundation for a resilient fiscal future for the District of Columbia