The Trump administration is preparing to cancel a large swath of federal funding for California, an effort that could begin as soon as Friday, according to multiple sources.
Agencies are being told to start identifying grants the administration can withhold from California. Sources said the administration is specifically considering a full termination of federal grant funding for the University of California and California State University systems.
Singling out one state for massive cuts would be an unusual move, but Donald Trump has long made Democratic-led California a target.
If the federal government isn’t going to give California back the federal taxes paid by its citizens then it should stop paying federal taxes.
I’m going to be fucking shook if Gavin actually does it. So far, the only people I’ve seen him meaningfully stand up to are bay area NIMBYs and homeless people.
I don’t see how he could since individuals pay income tax directly to the federal government during tax season. It would take all of them working in unison to do it. Unless there’s some other tax payment directly from CA state that I don’t know about.
millbrae made a fuss like a year-2 ago about some housing/location being built for the poor. guess who the nimbys are, all rich white people(i saw the video of them whining). Poc dont make a fuss with others around, i ever only seen caucasian people do it. remember the white flight in the bay, now its regentrifying. we did a whole talk/project about gentrification in the area in one of my courses.
Yeah. I’m out here fighting the NIMBYs in my city, they’re almost all older white dudes, not even that wealthy by California standards. It was super cool to see Newsom twist their arm like that, way less cool to see him bulldoze the homeless afterward.
Taco Don doesn’t understand how anything works.
Is that functionally just seceeding?
I have NO clue what the legal ramifications are here. If it’s not, that would seem like a next step.
Please do, California. I want to visit again and I’m not looking to get sent to El Salvador on arrival lol
I wonder how one could do this.
The state of California could implement say, an 80% state income tax. This would be deductable from federal tax per IRS tax code. The state could then create an instant tax credit to credit back a gross 69% income, leaving 11% to the state to match their current tax rate.
The Feds would only get tax on 20% of wages, unlike the 89% they do now
Then you get something like the current SALT cap that cancels that out
It would only delay things. When you get a state tax refund, the next year it’s counted as federal wages.
Delaying things might be enough if the state can do it for years
Taxes are collected through the private for-profit banking system in a manner that’s completely disjointed from the state of residency. Payroll taxes are incredibly efficient, with north of a 98% collections rate, for this reason. The private banks need the Federal Reserve and the Federal Reserve needs the US Treasury. So when the US Treasury says it’s taking a vig on your employer’s deposit at Bank of America or Citigroup or even your local Credit Union, compliance is instant and unquestioning.
Going Unbanked is one way to get around this. But without an employer who is operating on the same wavelength and willing to play ball, unbanking yourself is difficult and expensive and fraught with criminal liabilities.
So, the short answer is that there’s no (practical) way for a State Government to intervene on Federal income tax collection. Not when all the transactions are taking place in a server farm hosted in a NYC boiler room, anyway.
There are other comments that already give practical ways to accomplish what you say is impossible.
Link?
Simply don’t do the thing.
Individuals don’t typically pay taxes themselves. They get deducted from paychecks. Employers do this before we even get paid. So companies would need to support this. But then you have some like my employer who has hundreds of people in California but is based in another state. How is that going to work? This just isn’t as easy as residents just deciding not to.
Okay. I didnt know this. I’ve never actually paid taxes myself.
But it’s also possible other states get on board, and i know domestic industries like cannabis that dont do business with the maij body of the empire play it pretty fast abd loose with taxes.
its a good thing i stopped paying federal taxes.
First pretty dumb to say this publicly if true… But second: you do realize that the rules about paying taxes literally, only apply to people like you and I? They 100% will continue to go after low hanging fruit, and that means people who can’t afford a team of attorneys on retainer.
Well he can now, what he would have paid in taxes, he can pay the attorney’s with
You will lose against the IRS. The only way this works is if everyone acts together. You cannot beat Uncle Sam alone.
Good though they cut finding to that, too, then.
i’m gonna have to go ahead and disagree with you there. its been easy as hell to cheat on your taxes for a long time. extremely easy to invent stuff and end up owing 0. not as easy for them to actually check. especially not now.
I don’t know all the ins and outs of this, but somehow I doubt that Trump has as much financial leverage against the fourth largest economy in the world as he apparently thinks he does.
Add NY, MA, AND NJ and you have a block that is on quite solid ground.
I doubt it’s him who thinks he does. Remember, Putin is calling the shots, and his goal is to destabilize and destroy the US.
if state funding is being canceled, that state should leave the union. why be apart of the united states government if trump is dismantling and destroying the united states government.
The American thing to do is fight for America.
The people who want California to just leave are the ones who want to dismantle the country.
I’m Californian. The federal government, for my entire life, has just taken and taken and taken from me. I have received nothing in return. I don’t need your shitty union of thugs and mouth breathers, and I don’t need your bullshit military colonizing waste of time and money.
Well you probably don’t realize the things the federal government does give cali. Interstate highways are one. Coast guard. Bridges. And clearly funding to the universities. Now the balance is lopsided, in that cali gives more back. But that doesn’t mean cali would have given you those same things.
That said… determining if CA would be better with our without the feds is a complicated question. For one, they would probably need to fund thier own military, as they would be a ripe target given thier economic prosperity.We pay more into those federal programs than they spend back on us. If we just kept the taxes locally, while maintaining funding for all those programs, we would come out ahead by a factor of nearly 2:1.
As for military spending, there is a lot of savings to be had by not fighting endless bullshit Christian jihads.
So you missed my point. Many of those things that the feds pay for just wouldn’t happen if the state was paying. Politics is tricky like that.
It’s not a matter of the state taking over things, the federal government is (hypothetically) stopping those funds regardless of what they do, so why wouldn’t they fund it themselves because all those things you mentioned still need to happen.
See my comment to the other response about the not in my backyard crowd.
Why wouldn’t they?
The more local the governing body, the more they have to pacify the not in my backyard people. The federal government can generally ignore those people and just make things that need to happen, happen.
Isn’t the point of this post that soon the state isn’t going to be paying anyway?
Correct. But what you may have implied and got wrong is that this is somehow a bad idea. America is long overdue for a federal collapse. This cultural infighting is unsustainable.
As a new Yorker I am sick of having my tax dollars go to subsidize hicks in the deep south and Midwest that ultimately vote against my rights. I am more than happy to see the bridges that unite us burn because the concept of “unity” in a melting pot is a ticking time bomb, as it always has been.
The people who want California to just leave are the ones who want to dismantle the country.
This Canadian is fine with it at this point. Fuck the USA. We’ve been your friend forever and you shit on us.
Burn baby burn.
I wouldn’t really want to be sharing the largest land border in the world with the size of tempest brewing up in the US right now, should it ever boil over. Seems like that might be a bit of a nightmare to keep contained.
The strategy isn’t to keep it contained.
… Wait so you want the war spilling over into canada? Why?
I don’t want what’s best for America. I want what’s best for California. It’s in a bad relationship and is always the provider and the victim.
Without liberty and justice for all, there can BE no one nation indivisible.
Dude, this all blue states. We always help the poorly uneducated… and always get fucked on. Those leaders don’t even say thank you, or even wear a suit.
I think it maybe time to change the dynamic of the USA. Maybe instead of 2 levels, maybe three. Federal, regional, and state. Where the federal hands over some powers to the regional government. I am not sure how that could happen, but it might be a good direction.
I personally think that there should be three presidents, each overseeing a major chunk of America - West, Center, and East. This would help divide up the power of the executive branch, as the Judicial and Congressional branches would remain a global aspect of the nation. Unitary executive theory would be dead, since there can be no unitary, IMO.
Plus, we can have three separate elections - someone who ran to be elected in Centre America can’t run for the other two regions. This would allow us to have a lot more candidates, all of them quite focused on what they offer the region they decided to run for. Right now, a president has to appeal to ALL of America, which means not many people will actually be happy.
So Americans need to switch it off and on again. Gather up new founding fathers and mothers, write up a new constitution and declaration of independence - write up documents for a new federation between states…
Create a back up United States. Declare the old one null and void. Stop interacting with the old one. Start interacting with the new one.
Call all this something benign sounding. Try not to go to war about it. But yeah, you all need to switch this shit off and on again.
I agree. Time for a good old constitutional convention.
I can’t wait to be the United Coca-Cola States of Unilever America.
Except that’s exactly what the Heritage Foundation has been wanting for decades so they can turn the US into an official Christofascist nation.
Yup, by excluding the south east (Texas to Florida) they could easily reboot it in a much more progressive manner.
Texas and Florida? You mean North Mexico and Cuba Libre?
Woah woah woah. Texas seceded from Mexico to preserve slavery until they joined the US so they could secede to preserve slavery. And a cuba libre is delicious, not nearly as watered down (underwater) as Florida is.
California should cancel state funding for the federal government.
How about California cancelling paying federal taxes in turn? This would probably lead to a big loss for the federal budget, wouldn’t it?
If the Federal Government boycotts California, then California should close every Federal agency, prohibit all Federal employees from working, and confiscate all Federal property, then make it illegal to pay Federal income taxes in California. Instead, Federal income taxes will be collected by the state, and used to provide free health care and college for all California citizens.
They should also form a state pact with Oregon and Washington, then form an alliance with Canada and Mexico. That would surround about 3/4 of the USA
That would allow them to cut off MAGA access to the west coast ports, and charge exorbitant taxes and fees to get shipments from Asia, or be forced to ship them through the Panama Canal to the East Coast.
The war that would result would be like nothing any of us have ever experienced, except for our veterans, perhaps, though they would never have had to fight their own people before. The only people who would truly know ahead of time what to expect would be those who came to this country from war-torn regions that had experienced civil war.
California is powerful economically, but do they have the military might to withstand the hell that the US Army can unleash? If other states join them, it’ll be utter chaos, and who knows how it ends, but that might turn the tide for the rebels as the military would likely fracture as many might follow their states to the exit.
Aside from utter dissolution of the Union, the only way I can see California standing up to the USA would be to have a nuclear deterrent available immediately upon independence, which would likely mean seizing as many federal nuclear weapons as they could. Whether the California National Guard would be up to that is beyond my ken.
God help us all if Trump continues on this path.
Considering that many members of the military have been based in California for a long time, it has become their home. They have met their lovers, raised families, known comrades, and steeped in the culture of California. I think it is a fair bet that a large chunk of the military in California would be loyal to the territory. Washington is a far off place, filled with cretinous and bonespur-ridden leaders who badmouthed the service of those who were willing to bleed.
Here’s hoping this assertion holds true. If not, the nation is well and truly lost to evil.
Funny thing Is that Trump would nuke California. He’s speed running the Civil War movie that came out.
And get nuked in return, assuming weapons could be seized by California and employed. But you’re right: I could see that egomaniac fucking us all over further by starting a nuclear conflict.
God, I want my family out of this country, but there’s nowhere to go.
Before my dad went down the Qanon hole. He told me America was the last place on earth for true freedom. And we ran away from a genocide because our overlords turned on us.
He’s still mad that Schwarzenegger took over The Celebrity Apprentice
Holy shit. This would be so on brand for Trump that it’s probably the main reason.
Is California secession still a thing?
Sounds like is sure could be. Also sounds like the basis for a court case.
There’s an ongoing political effort to get it on the ballot called “CalExit”
I’m pretty sure Texas is the only “legal” state allowed to secede, but I’m not a lawyer and my info may be woefully out of date
No state is allowed to. Read the 14th amendment.
And there is an emoluments clause. And dozens of others already violated.
That’s irrelevant to whether or not a state has an established legal right to do a thing.
When it gets to the level of a component piece of a country leaving said country, it doesn’t really matter what the law is. The South isn’t part of the US because it was decided that secession was illegal, they’re there because they got their ass beaten.
The colonies weren’t “allowed” to leave England either, yet here we are.
Would it cause a civil war? Yea. Would California win? Of course not.
I’m not convinced it would lead to civil war. It could, but it still takes a lot of manufacturing consent for us to go to war with random brown countries. It’d be no easy task to convince the US population and military we needed to start dropping bombs on Hollywood. Soldiers would desert and other states would think about joining.
No, Texas (nor any other state) can not secede from the Union.
https://www.sll.texas.gov/faqs/can-texas-secede
Can Texas secede? I heard it is one of the only states that can secede from the United States.
It is a common misunderstanding that Texas has the right to leave the United States. The Texas State Library and Archives Commission (TSLAC) addresses this on their page about Texas’s annexation:
It is said of Texas (and, occasionally, Vermont) that it received a letter or document of permission to withdraw from the Federal Union if it so chose. […] In fact, Texas received no special terms in its admission to the Union. Once Texas had agreed to join the Union, she never had the legal option of leaving, either before or after the Civil War.
I stand corrected
Texas can split itself up into 5 states, but not secede.
The US would never allow that much freedom. It has to ensure everyone is locked down.
California should confiscate Trump National golf course.
Finally a good use of eminent domain
Turn it into a homeless shelter.
And spend 30 years building high speed rail through it, just to flex.
Wind turbines
And another big ass canal, for good measure.
The University of California is the largest employer in the state.
In most other states, Walmart is the biggest employer.
Talk about giving higher education the middle finger!
It says a lot, by itself.
Is it because they are a hospital network like the University of Pittsburgh? (UPMC is the largest in PA)
anti-science funding. the threat to fascists states are usually intellectual and science so they are often the first to be persecuted before minorities are. most of the people in the industries are smart enough to leave the country before sht hits the fan.
The ICE raids are meant to cause the response we are seeing, and eventually an even more powerful response. The White House has already been throwing around the word insurrection, which implies the insurrection act. If the natural escalation that they expect takes place, it could create the conditions where the insurrection act can be invoked. Since the Federal level is under control of the Trump Administration, that leaves the National Guard, state police, county sheriffs, and local police departments. The only one of these capable of standing up to the Feds would be the National Guard. If things turn ugly over the next few weeks during continued raids in places like L.A., it could force the Governor to deploy the national guard given the numbers of people involved. Some of these communities are well armed and they are already fighting back. If the goal is to cause the conditions to invoke the insurrection act, it would take away the ablity of the California Governor to direct his national guard. They can be forced to follow the orders of the President, which is one of the reasons for using the Insurrection Act in the first place.
In a place like L.A., this leaves just the LAPD and Sherrifs department and they do not have the power to stop both the Feds and a national guard under White House control. L.A. seems to be heavily targeted by the Trump administration in many different ways. They are looking at bribery and corruption in many areas like LA Homeless Agency. The ICE raids targeted the Fashion District are meant as an economic attack, as many of those people worked in shops and factories. Other ICE raids targeted companies involved in agriculture. The Trump admin is also looking at other Federal funding to take away from California.
All of this combined could mean that the state Government, state and local police cannot protect these communities from what is being sent after them, partially as an overall form of economic warfare against California generally. You have the wildfire funds, the tariffs attacking the shipping areas of coastal California, and it’s obvious that it is a well planned operation. Behind this too is a hostile DOJ and FBI, not to mention DHS, ICE, and everyone else. They are being hunted.
The State Government can’t protect anyone either, they have been totally outmanuvered at every stage, because they are just coasting until 2026. The one advantage people have is their numbers. Peaceful protest is the way forward, it just takes a lot more people knowing about the raids and being present to protest them. If the Trump admin wants a Kent state or Tiananmen Square type situation on their hands, that will be on them…
“The takeover will be bloodless if the left allows it to be.”
There’s your choice, America.
Just so others know that is an actual quote.
"I want to encourage you with some substance that we are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.” - Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts
I will find this man and show him how peaceful the left can be.
Everyone should find that statement absolutely chilling. They are prepared to kill anyone that tries to prevent them from getting their way. Those are the stakes. The courts won’t help you
They got guns, we got guns…
National Guard was already deployed by Trump to Los Angeles today.
I posted that about 30 minutes before it happened.
Yup, not arguing, just adding some updates.
Looks like a class action lawsuit involving the people of California and the Feds.
california doesnt even need federal funding. california funds everyone else.
We also feed everyone else.
All blue states feed the poorly uneducated.