Obama shares support for DC statehood

President Obama said Monday that as a Washington, D.C., resident he supported statehood for the District of Columbia’s 650,000 inhabitants.

“I’m in D.C., so I’m for it,” Obama said Monday at a town-hall event to promote his “My Brother’s Keeper” program.

{mosads}”I’ve long believed that folks in D.C. pay taxes like everybody else. They contribute to the overall well-being of the country like everybody else. They should be represented like everybody else,” Obama added.

The president said there was no reason based on population size to deny the district’s residents statehood. But he acknowledged that the politics in Congress on D.C. statehood would be “difficult.”

Last year, the White House installed the District’s “taxation without representation” license plates onto the presidential motorcade vehicles.

At the time, the administration released a statement saying Obama had seen “first-hand how patently unfair it is for working families in D.C. to work hard, raise children and pay taxes, without having a vote in Congress.”

“Attaching these plates to the presidential vehicles demonstrates the President’s commitment to the principle of full representation for the people of the District of Columbia and his willingness to fight for voting rights, Home Rule and budget autonomy for the District,” the statement said.