Not saying there isn't gross mismanagement and systematic corruption, but not being a state also puts DC at a serious disadvantage. They don't have access to state funds, or any government programs that only work through states (though many government programs working through states do make a point of including DC, not all do). Also, they lose out on a lot of corruption not having senators at all. Senators regularly ship large amount of pork back to their state. No senators, no pork.
A large city in your average state can get away with a lot more corruption and mismanagement than DC could. They'd have state government, certain national programs, and national representatives to fall back on. DC gets none of that.
On the other hand, given the amount of time they spend in the area, and their dependency on the federal workforce in DC, to some degree every other Senator and Representative looks out for DC's interests. DC has plenty of de facto power to get pork, even without the de jure representation.
Spending time in DC does not equate becoming a resident of DC, nor does it posit in one a sense of ownership necessary to take care of DC. This is especially true when the part of DC these senators et al live in is not representative of DC as a whole: DC does a very good job of fencing off the haves from the havenots (e.g. no metro stop in Georgetown).
I don't see how that is relevant in this instance. It very well might be the truth, but I hardly find it relevant to this discussion. The question poised (does unused minutes on a calling card a) have value, and b) can be viewed as unclaimed property) is independent of the quality of the DC gov't. Sure, they might not be bringing this up if they had more resources (for whatever reason), but that doesn't necessarily taint the question.
It's relevant because this amounts to nothing more than another cash grab. There would be no need for ridiculous new taxes like this if it weren't for the incredible mismanagement. And before someone asserts that it isn't a tax, keep in mind that the reason rates are where they are is because companies expect a percentage of the service to never be used. Rates will go up because of this.
I agree that companies price these cards expecting to be able to reclaim a certain percentage of the value of these cards. However, they are selling the entire value to the consumer.
So if (and it's a big 'if') the unused minutes are unclaimed property, then gov't escheatment isn't a tax, it's reclaiming lost property on behalf of the consumer. The consumer paid for the entire value of the card, not the value of the card minus a bonus for the issuing company.
Anything left over on a card should be treated as pure bonus to the companies, not a standard revenue source that needs to be recouped. If they do raise rates to recoup lost revenues, then it is the companies performing a cash-grab, not the gov't. This is why companies like gift cards and pre-paid minutes cards... they've been able to extract out the unused value from the cards for years, and it's all "extra" money that they didn't have to earn.
That's like saying I hit closing time while I was at the video arcade playing Pac-Man so the government should be able to take the remaining cash value of my quarter for the unconsumed pac-dots, even though my game ended. The minutes are a temporal good, only valid within a timeframe. There is no remaining value to escheat, because they are expired.
That might very well be the case that gets argued, though note that expired gift cards can also be reclaimed by the government. A quick read of the link posted by patio11 suggests that states may declare that gift cards should have no expiry dates, perhaps they could force a similar ruling onto pre-pay call cards.
Clearly there is enough grey space to go to court about it.
It just seems to fail a very simple test of allowing the government to steal money from any one that offers any thing that has an expiry. To take it out of the virtual world- can the government escheat from a restaurant the remaining value of food at a buffet restaurant where you are allowed five trips to the buffet but only use two? The expired items have no value, so there is nothing to escheat.
It's true that they could declare a law against expiry, but that would seem to be a completely separate case.
It's not a tax, and it's not new. It has its basis in common law that goes back nearly a millenium: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escheat. Also, DC is not the only state that follows this doctrine.
A large city in your average state can get away with a lot more corruption and mismanagement than DC could. They'd have state government, certain national programs, and national representatives to fall back on. DC gets none of that.