The contest between Virginia and Washington over two professional sports franchises — the Wizards in basketball and Capitals in hockey — is not quite over, but Virginia is well ahead in the fourth quarter. The commonwealth’s General Assembly and Alexandria’s city council still have to sign off on a new arena in Potomac Yard, but if they do, and if other present trends continue, the city will soon lose NBA and NHL franchises that began playing downtown 27 years ago.
Washington, D.C
Opinion | D.C. shouldn’t give up its arena fight — but must prepare for a post-Wiz world
We wish the teams would stay. The current location is in the heart of the region just a few blocks from the White House. The arena anchors a downtown neighborhood of residents, offices, bars and restaurants hugging Seventh Street NW, and it sits on top of a Metro hub that’s easily accessible to residents from all corners of the region. Losing these teams will be a blow to an increasingly hollowed-out downtown Washington. Ideally, the teams’ owner, Ted Leonsis, would reconsider the city’s generous final offer to stay in a downtown he helped to succeed for many years.
But Mr. Leonsis and his company, Monumental Sports & Entertainment, appear ready to leave. Unlike the space in Potomac Yard, the teams’ current arena has little room to expand. D.C. is struggling to combat a violent crime surge, and the city did too little to address years of complaints about nuisances and declining safety in the arena’s neighborhood. More importantly, the city failed to get its best offer to Mr. Leonsis in time once he indicated he was serious about moving. If Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) had submitted her final proposal — an $800 million arena renovation, with $500 million paid for by the city — months ago, Mr. Leonsis might have accepted it. In the meantime, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) offered Mr. Leonsis a $2 billion development with a massive new arena surrounded by the sorts of things that are harder to build in downtown Washington: team practice facilities, offices for Mr. Leonsis’s company, a hotel, an additional concert venue, a Virginia Tech campus, housing, shops and restaurants.
The two proposals side by side
$2 billion (plus $200 million for transportation upgrades)
What
Monumental
Sports pays
$400 million upfront plus $400 million in lease payments over time
$400 million plus ongoing lease payments
How the
rest of the
project is
financed
Initial offer: About $200 million. Final offer: $500 million bond paid back by D.C. taxpayers.
$1.1 billion in bonds paid back by tax revenue generated in new arena area. Plus $100 million from Alexandria
Suburban. Served by two Metro lines.
Urban. Served by all six Metro lines.
Development
around
the arena
Twelve-acre development with new practice facilities, hotel, a concert venue, retail, offices and residences. It will be art of a 70-acre plan for Potomac Yard.
The D.C. arena is 5 acres in the heart of the city near the White House, hotels and businesses. Practice facilities are elsewhere.
JBG Smith and a pension fund own the land
D.C. government owns land
The two proposals side by side
$2 billion (plus $200 million for transportation upgrades)
What
Monumental
Sports pays
$400 million upfront plus $400 million in lease payments over time
$400 million plus ongoing lease payments
How the rest
of the project
is financed
$1.1 billion in bonds paid back by tax revenue generated in new arena area. Plus $100 million from Alexandria
Initial offer: About $200 million. Final offer: $500 million bond paid back by D.C. taxpayers.
Urban. Served by all six Metro lines.
Suburban. Served by two Metro lines.
Development
around
the arena
Twelve-acre development with new practice facilities, hotel, a concert venue, retail, offices and residences. It will be art of a 70-acre plan for Potomac Yard.
The D.C. arena is 5 acres in the heart of the city near the White House, hotels and businesses. Practice facilities are elsewhere.
JBG Smith and a pension fund own the land
D.C. government owns land
The two proposals side by side
$2 billion (plus $200 million for transportation upgrades)
What Monumental
Sports pays
$400 million upfront plus $400 million in lease payments over time
$400 million plus ongoing lease payments
How the rest of the
project is financed
Initial offer: About $200 million. Final offer: $500 million bond paid back by D.C. taxpayers.
$1.1 billion in bonds paid back by tax revenue generated in new arena area. Plus $100 million from Alexandria
Suburban. Served by two Metro lines.
Urban. Served by all six Metro lines.
Development around
the arena
The D.C. arena is 5 acres in the heart of the city near the White House, hotels and businesses. Practice facilities are elsewhere.
Twelve-acre development with new practice facilities, hotel, a concert venue, retail, offices and residences. It will be art of a 70-acre plan for Potomac Yard.
JBG Smith and a pension fund own the land
D.C. government owns land
For Mr. Leonsis to consider staying, D.C. would likely have to show progress on combating crime and a vision for revitalizing the neighborhood. The iconic Gallery Place mall and office complex adjacent to the arena is hemorrhaging tenants and seeking a new owner. It’s worth Ms. Bowser making a final pitch for the teams. Washington needs them more than Virginia does, and city officials shouldn’t give up until the relocation deal is final. Even if they fail, committing to some of the things that would make D.C. a more attractive place for Mr. Leonsis would make it a better place for others to do business, too.
Nevertheless, Mr. Leonsis is probably going to move the teams. While Mr. Youngkin and other Virginia leaders would no doubt rejoice, there are risks on their side of the Potomac. The new arena project’s $2 billion price tag is hefty. Mr. Leonsis would pay $400 million up front and then another $400 million over time to rent the arena. The city of Alexandria would kick in about $100 million. The remainder — roughly $1.1 billion — would come from bonds that are repaid by taxes collected within the 12-acre site. That means all the sales taxes, parking revenue, income taxes, corporate taxes and a ticket tax would go to repay the bonds.
Mr. Youngkin says that no Virginia taxpayer money would fund the project. Even modest crowds would likely generate enough revenue to pay back the bonds. But if those crowds fail to materialize, Virginia taxpayers would be on the hook for up to $577 million, since the state is backstopping part of the loan. Alexandria residents would be responsible for another $577 million in the worst-case situation. Virginia lawmakers should ask about scenarios in which there is another pandemic and 220 events a year don’t happen. State leaders should also make ironclad Mr. Leonsis’s promise to keep the teams at the Potomac Yard site until 2064 or pay back the loan balances. Many cities — ask St. Louis and Oakland — have been stuck paying bills after sports teams left.
Washington sports
The Washington Wizards and Washington Capitals play at Capital One Arena in D.C.
Transportation is the Virginia site’s biggest drawback. The arena could hold 20,000 fans. But the current Potomac Yard Metro station is small. The highways around Potomac Yard are already jammed, and there’s no Amtrak or Virginia Railway Express stop there. Mr. Youngkin’s team says the state will invest $200 million to help, but they haven’t said where that money will come from. Mr. Youngkin has also yet to promise any more funding to help keep Metro going in 2025 or beyond. State lawmakers need to ensure shoring up Metro is part of any arena funding package. Also still unknown is who will pay for extra policing in the area, and how to ensure that a new Virginia Sports and Entertainment Authority, which would oversee the new arena district, has to account for all the money and contracts it will handle. A lack of transparency with similar authorities in Chicago caused massive problems.
As Virginia sorts out these crucial details, D.C. needs to prepare for a post-Wizards world. Ms. Bowser has launched a task force to generate new ideas for the Gallery Place-Chinatown neighborhood. There’s early talk of a concert venue and a welcoming public space in the area. (Cleveland’s downtown Public Square is a good model, with a cafe, a splash pad for kids and green space for relaxing.) If the city doesn’t have to give Mr. Leonsis $500 million, it could use the money for other needs.
But no amount of money will make up for failing to get the basics right: ensuring public safety and cultivating a business-friendly climate. D.C. can no longer assume that people and businesses want to locate in urban centers; the city and its leaders must compete for them. Even if it loses this round, Washington can rally for the next.
Washington, D.C
The director of the Congressional Budget Office—known for its gloomy national debt data—is very optimistic that a crisis will be avoided entirely | Fortune
Dr Phillip Swagel is an optimist, both by nature and when he looks at the U.S. economy.
This fact is perhaps at odds with what one might assume: Swagel is the director of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the nonpartisan agency that offers independent budgetary and economic analysis to Congress.
Very often—an inevitable occupational hazard—the subject of national debt and the interest the U.S. Treasury pays to maintain is its central focus. The numbers are eye-watering: Public debt stands at more than $39 trillion. The interest expense on that borrowing now exceeds $1 trillion a year. Indeed, the latest budget update from the CBO highlights that the government—according to preliminary estimates—paid out nearly $530 billion between October 2025, when the fiscal year starts, and March 2026. This equates to more than $88 billion in interest payments a month, or more than $22 billion a week.
The CBO’s figures are routinely cited by policymakers, think tanks, and lobbyists as alarming evidence that the U.S. needs to find a more sustainable fiscal path or risk dire straits.
Swagel doesn’t subscribe to the notion that the U.S. will face a crisis of its own making. His justification is simple: He was at the Treasury during the 2008 financial crisis, and joined the CBO months before the COVID pandemic began. He has watched as the U.S. economy, seemingly against all odds, has clawed its way out of economic crises before.
That’s not to say Swagel isn’t a staunch advocate of setting the U.S. on a more sustainable fiscal path—rather, he trusts the people in power to do so when the time comes.
Why the optimism?
Among those concerned about national debt are notable names: JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, and Bridgewater Associates founder Ray Dalio. Tesla CEO Elon Musk is also worried about federal spending and has endorsed a plan floated by Berkshire Hathaway founder Warren Buffett that would render members of Congress ineligible for reelection if they allow deficits to exceed 3% of GDP.
On the other hand, optimistic economists suggest that, despite the value of the debt, it’s not actually an issue: the bond market is holding steady, indicating a reliable market of buyers. Likewise, the U.S.’s own central bank buys huge swaths of the debt, meaning, in the simplest of layman’s terms, the economy can essentially print its own money. There are holes in this argument, not least the fact that Fed chairman nominee Kevin Warsh has suggested he would like to reduce the Fed’s balance sheet and may therefore be less inclined to finance borrowing.
Swagel’s positive outlook doesn’t rely on the argument that a crisis hasn’t happened yet, so therefore it never will: “[My optimism] is rooted in my experience,” Swagel tells Fortune in an exclusive interview in Washington D.C. “First being at Treasury during the financial crisis and seeing very difficult times and the country coming together with an effective response—not saying it’s perfect, lots of controversy—but it was effective.”
“The second thing is policymakers are smart, they’re thoughtful. Interacting with members of Congress makes me optimistic. I know you read about all the squabbles … I’m completely aware of this, but the policymakers that are thinking about these things are thoughtful and effective. Not necessarily always effective at passing legislation, but that’s part of our political system, it was set up to make it difficult ot pass legislation.”
Decisions on the horizon
Swagel’s optimism that Congress will be pushed into action will be tested sooner rather than later, likely at some point in the next six years, he told Fortune. This is partly due to the fact that, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB) both Social Security and Medicare will become insolvent within that time period.
“Making progress to address the fiscal trajectory would be a positive for the U.S. economy,” Swagel said. “Credible steps would lead to lower interest rates that would make the subsequent adjustment easier, there is a reward to virtue. It’s a positive thing, we can’t go on [with] the scolding narrative. My sense is that members of Congress understand the fiscal situation, it’s not that everyone single one has looked at our one-pager of numbers and understands the debt to the third decimal point, but they understand something needs to be done.”
“It doesn’t have to be done immediately, but at some point reasonably soon.”
Swagel is of the opinion that bond investors haven’t increased risk premiums not because they’re not worried about a fiscal crisis, but because they have priced in preventative action from Congress—in his mind “a vote of confidence that my optimism is not misplaced.”
“As a country, we face up to these problems. It’s not happening now, I’m not sure it’s going to happen in the rest of this year or even the next year, or the next two years. But we will face up to it, and the market in some sense expects us to, because otherwise interest rates would be higher,” he explained.
The Cheesecake Factory
The role of the CBO, to some extent, is to provide policymakers with their options if and when they do choose to take action on federal deficits. It’s a menu not unlike the Cheesecake Factory, Swagel says: Large, inclusive of a range of modifications and options, and delivered without judgement.
“Right now it’s maybe a pick three, and you’re looking at a six or seven course menu,” joked Caleb Quakenbush, director of fiscal policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center, in an interview with Fortune. “The longer you delay, the more you’re gonna have to add to your tab, and those options become more expensive.”
Indeed, economists and analysts aren’t necessarily worried about the absolute level of government debt, rather the debt-to-GDP ratio. Depending on whom you ask, the debt-to-GDP ratio stands at around 122% of GDP at present. This measure demonstrates an economy’s spending versus its growth, and the risk associated with lending to a nation that isn’t growing fast enough to handle its spending. To rebalance that ratio, an economy could either cut spending or increase growth—the latter being by far the less painful option.
The growth option is becoming less feasible, Michael Peterson, CEO of fiscal think tank the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, told Fortune in an exclusive interview: “I think it requires government action because we’ve waited so long. We’ve added so many trillions, and the current deficit is so big at 6% that the level of growth you would need really exceeds what is feasible.
“Growth needs to be a part of it, but it’s sort of a vicious cycle. The longer we delay, the more debt we have, the slower growth is going to be. The more we get this under control, I think the greater optimism there is, interest rates go down, more growth comes from that. It’s sort of a virtuous or vicious cycle depending on your policy response.”
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WCTV) – Seventy-two veterans took a trip Saturday to our nation’s capital to visit memorials honoring their service in the armed forces.
This year marks the 12th trip to Washington, D.C. for Honor Flight Tallahassee.
Early Saturday morning, veterans and their guardians met to take a charter flight up to D.C.
Throughout the day, veterans were taken to the World War II memorial, as well as the Korean and Vietnam War memorials. The veterans also visited Arlington National Cemetery and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
More Tallahassee news:
The day ended with a wonderful welcome home celebration.
Our Jacob Murphey, Julia Miller, Taylor Viles, and Grace Temple accompanied the veterans, capturing moments from throughout the day.
The team will have live coverage from Washington, D.C. on Monday to share more from the day’s events.
We will continue to have coverage throughout the month of May, leading up to our Honor Flight special on Memorial Day.
To keep up with the latest news as it develops, follow WCTV on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Nextdoor and X (Twitter).
Have a news tip or see an error? Write to us here. Please include the article’s headline in your message.
Be the first to see all the biggest headlines by downloading the WCTV News app. Click here to get started.
Copyright 2026 WCTV. All rights reserved.
4 things to know about the weather:
- Chances of rain in the morning
- Gusty Sunday
- Chilly Monday
- Temps will rise again through the work week
Download the NBC Washington app on iOS and Android to check the weather radar on the go.
After a nice and warm Saturday, changes arrive for part two of the weekend.
The first half of your Sunday will have a chance for showers. Winds will pick up with our next system and are expected to gust to about 20-30 mph. Cooler air will settle in, and lows Sunday night fall into the 40s.
Highs temps Monday will reach only into the mid to upper 50s.
However, temperatures will rise through the week, so you won’t need your jackets every day.
QuickCast
SUNDAY:
Showers, then partly cloudy
Wind: NW 10-15 mph
Gusts @ 30 mph
HIGH: Lower 60s
MONDAY:
Partly cloudy
Wind: NW 10-15 mph
Gusts @ 25 mph
HIGH: Upper 50s
Stay with Storm Team4 for the latest forecast. Download the NBC Washington app on iOS and Android to get severe weather alerts on your phone.
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