“How Will You Pay for Your Proposals?”

As Mayor, Khan will make closing the 17 year life expectancy gap and $200,000 household income divide between affluent wards and Wards 7 and 8 a top priority. Khan has correctly diagnosed that as long as Washington DC remains the epicenter of health and wealth inequality, the city can never be truly safe. His plan to add 100,000 PERMANENTLY AFFORDABLE HOMES in Washington DC is central to reducing crime in DC. Under Khan’s plan, fair, safe, and affordable housing will be added at record pace, with mortgages and rents capped at $900 for a 1-bedroom, $1,250 for 2-bedroom and $1,500 for 3-bedroom units. These are prices not seen since 1984 (adjusted for inflation) — when Reagan was President — even Republicans should support this, right?

Rebuilding Washington, DC

For decades, our national priorities have been upside down. While families in Wards 7 and 8 and other parts of DC struggle with skyrocketing rents and displacement, we are told there is 'no money' for affordable housing. Yet, when it comes to endless wars and unproven and failed weapons systems, the money is always there. Since 2000, the U.S. has committed trillions of dollars to wars and weapons systems that have failed and did not meet strategic needs. The Department of War / Pentagon has NEVER passed a financial audit! Trillions of dollars remain unaccounted for. Such spending has especially benefited those who built mansions and installed their kids in Ivy League schools, top law firms and Fortune 50 companies.

They look at Khan’s platform—the $900 rent caps, the $50 minimum wage for those who build our city and keep it running, 36 weeks of paid parental leave, no-cost, universal childcare, the $100,000 teacher base salaries, free buses +24/7 Metro, nonprofit supermarkets, replacement of all lead water pipes—and they say, ‘Mr. Khan, how are you going to pay for it?’

Khan has a simple answer: We will treat rebuilding the capital of our nation as a National Security Issue. We have a military budget that is bloated beyond recognition, while the very people tasked with protecting this nation—the workers right here in D.C.—are being squeezed out of their own homes.

Right now, we have thousands of residents holding secret and top-secret clearances. These are the people handling our nation’s most sensitive data. And yet, many of them are one missed paycheck away from a crisis. When a patriot with a security clearance can’t afford their rent or their kid’s childcare, they don't just become desperate—they become a national security risk. Financial stress is the number one gateway for bribery and foreign espionage.

We are telling the federal government: If D.C. isn't stable, the country isn't safe.

We need to treat Washington, D.C. like a national security priority. We need to rebuild this city with the same intensity and funding we use for war-torn nations. We don't need another overseas 'nation-building' project; we need a National Capital Building Project.

Replacing every lead pipe isn't just plumbing; it’s public health security. A $50 minimum wage for folks handling construction, sanitation, transportation, childcare, and healthcare works isn't just a raise; it’s economic fortification.

The money is there. It’s sitting in silos and weapon systems that don't make us safer. I’m not asking for a handout; I’m demanding a strategic investment in the survival of our city. If we can afford to police the globe, we can afford to make sure a teacher in Ward 8 can live where they work.

It’s time we stopped paying for destruction abroad and started paying for greatness at home.

Funding Our Agenda

Khan is issuing a fearless, direct challenge to federal leadership: If you insist on controlling DC’s budget and blocking our path to statehood, you must stop acting like an abusive, deadbeat parent. For too long, the federal government has systematically starved our neighborhoods while treating Washington as a partisan punching bag. Khan’s agenda forces the federal machine to finally manage DC like the world-class capital it could be—investing the billions needed to dismantle the root causes of crime, despair, and health inequality once and for all. Fully funding Khan’s campaign platform would cost an estimated $40 billion in upfront capital infrastructure investments, alongside an additional $10 billion in annual recurring costs paid by the federal government, the ultimate custodian of Washington DC. This is FAR LESS than the amount that has been spent on the war on Iran so far! And the ROI for Washingtonians would be 100X greater.

The baseline economic breakdown of these costs is structured across the platform's core pillars:

Upfront Capital Infrastructure Investments

Building the foundational assets for a completely restructured city layout requires a heavy, one-time federal injection.

• 100,000 Affordable Homes: Building 100,000 PERMANENTLY AFFORDABLE, stunning, modern units in D.C. at an average urban development cost of $350,000 per unit equates to $35 billion.

• 340 Non-Profit Bodega-style Grocery Stores: To ensure every single home in D.C.’s 68 square miles is within a 5-minute walk (a 0.25-mile radius), the city would need roughly 340 small bodegas. Acquiring real estate and building them out at $300,000 each requires $102 million.

• $5 Creative New Deal: Invest $5 billion in at-risk youth to channel their energy into the arts, design, and engineering—building the next Hollywood, Broadway, Silicon Valley, and fashion hub right here in D.C.

Annual Recurring Costs With Federal Subsidies

The Bottom Line

While Khan’s critics view a $9.86 billion annual price tag as a staggering federal expenditure for a single city, a revolutionary campaign like Khan's would argue this is a necessary correction [khan4dc.org] for the nation’s capital that is the epicenter of racial health and wealth inequality. From a systemic perspective, this funding replaces the massive backend costs of the status quo—such as the billions spent on policing, prisons, emergency healthcare, and homeless shelters—and channels it directly into upfront human dignity.

Join Team Khan and help power this revolution!

The Power of Demand

They call our platform ‘impossible.’ But history tells a different story.

Every single freedom we take for granted today was once called 'impossible.' From the abolition of slavery to women’s suffrage, from desegregation to Civil Rights, Voting Rights, and Marriage Equality—not a single one was 'given' to us by a generous government. They were won because people united, rose up, and demanded change until the status quo broke.

But here is the difference: We don't have decades to wait.

We are living in a city where your zip code determines how long you will live. We have a 17-year life expectancy gap and a $200,000 income gap between our Wards. This isn't just 'inequality'—it is the fuel for our crime crisis and our broken schools. We have children drinking from lead-poisoned pipes and a housing crisis so severe it threatens our national security.

As Khan notes, “I am telling you today: I cannot do this alone. A Mayor is only as strong as the movement behind them. My platform will only be implemented when the residents of this city rise as one and demand that the federal government treat the capital of the free world with the same urgency they treat a foreign war. The money is there. The federal government could cut one check from a military budget that is already overflowing and fix these problems within my first term. They have the resources; what they lack is the pressure. If we wait for 'the right time,' it will never come. If we wait for the establishment to 'find the budget,' they never will. We must be the generation that stops asking for permission and starts demanding results. We must unite, we must rise, and we must take our city back.”

For critics who find Khan’s platform "unaffordable," he offers a simple challenge to the federal government: if you insist on controlling DC’s budget, it’s time to start managing it like the world-class capital city it could be instead of the city that is the epicenter of economic and health inequality.

While the establishment pearl-wrings over his $900 rent caps, free transit, universal/no-cost childcare, 36 weeks of paid parental leave and non-profit grocery stores, they’ve already spent TEN times the cost of Khan’s platform on the war in Iran—and to enrich themselves and their cronies in the military industrial complex. Khan’s platform is radical because DC’s problems are radical, born from foundations broken by the dark legacy of federal redlining, segregation, and decades of discrimination. He’s shunning the timid, incremental "baby steps" of past mayors to demand that the resources used to tear things down abroad be brought home to build DC back up.

Are you done with the status quo? Then join Team Khan and help transform DC into the ultimate Dream City — Khan is the ONLY candidate in this race taking $0 in donations. He doesn’t answer to special interests — he answers to DC’s struggling working families who helped shape this platform.

“What If the Federal Government Refuses to Fund Our Agenda?”

History proves that rights are never freely given—they are won through organized, unyielding struggle. When the federal government denies Washingtonians the basic dignity of $900 rent caps, 36 weeks of parental leave, universal childcare, and free transit, we will not retreat. We will organize.

If Congress refuses to fund the future we deserve, we will look to the blueprints of courage left by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the Suffragists, and the civil rights giants who marched down these very streets. If negotiations fail, our city will move from conversation to mass mobilization.

THE BLUEPRINT FOR COLLECTIVE ACTION

[ PHASE 1 ]: Labor walkouts + Workers withold power

[ PHASE 2 ]: Transit occupations + Metro & streets halt

[ PHASE 3 ]: Citywide Rent Strikes + Housing market freezes

• The People’s Strike: Just as labor and civil rights leaders mobilized millions to demand economic justice, our teachers, service workers, and city staff will withhold their labor. If the federal government locks our budget, we will lock down the gears of everyday commerce.

• The Transit Shutdown: Following the footsteps of the Freedom Riders, we will reclaim our public infrastructure. We will flood the Metro stations and major intersections, declaring our transit free for the people, by the people, until the city grinds to a halt for justice.

• The Universal Rent Strike: No caps, no cash. Tens of thousands of D.C. tenants will collectively withhold rent, packing the courts and freezing the corporate housing market until affordable, capped housing is codified into law.

• The Federal Blockade: We will bring the moral clarity of the Suffragists directly to the steps of the Capitol and federal agency gates. If Congress treats our home like a colony, we will peacefully and resolutely block the entryways of federal power until our voices are heard. Until we either end the 225 years of taxation without representation or we gain the funding we need to rebuild DC as outlined in our platform.

We do not seek permission for our liberation. If the federal government refuses to fund a dignified life for D.C. residents, we will deploy the ultimate power of nonviolent resistance to make the status quo completely untenable.