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.
better to just balkanize the blue states, and let the red states without welfare for a change.
He’s just jealous because California has the best TACOs.
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.
How about California cancelling paying federal taxes in turn? This would probably lead to a big loss for the federal budget, wouldn’t it?
california doesnt even need federal funding. california funds everyone else.
TACO.
The federal government has irrevocably been compromised, US states need to be able to leave it. Preferably like the UK left the EU, without a civil war. It’s only going to get worse, and reform is no longer possible, as too many branches have been compromised and midterms are likely to be compromised by Agent Kraskov and friends. As much as the Trump-Musk sideshow feud keeps going, it’s not doing much and is not likely to do much to stop Trump.
This is a test of the Union that formed after the Civil War. We should have scrubbed the Electoral College then and we should have forced the redistribution of land to the slaves. With federal forces providing local police protection. So the palm colored people couldn’t hurt them.
Unfortunately, Lincoln was murdered soon after the South surrendered, and Andrew Johnson, a drunken Confederate sympathizer took over as president, and led the post-war Reconstruction.
This is known. It’s just sad.
California should cancel state funding for the federal government.
the only people who want California to secede are tech freaks that want to establish a monarchy and see this as an opportunity to do that
If you build the dome in silicone valley, John Galt will appear beneath it and bless the Mars sperm ark.
Who is John Galt?
This guy sheds a tear but to know.
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.
Why wouldn’t they?
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Sounds like California should cancel the taxes it would normally send to the fed.
All the blue states should do this. Shake off the conservative parasites.
That would break the bank. California is 4th largest economy in the world, after the U.S., China, and Germany. It would probably cause Trump to declare martial law and send troops to California.
Sign me up for Cali’s defense. Better to fight Trump and his kind, than to live with them for the rest of my life.
I mean, good luck? CA is also obscenely well defended, since most of its modern wealth came from it being considered a battleground vs Japan and Russia, so there’s loads of bases.
Most likely, this will just yet again be a defeat in court. That dude is just throwing shit against the wall and hoping some of it will stick.
Why are people still convinced that the courts have any meaningful power anymore? The orangeboi regime has already flagrantly ignored a ton of court rulings; they’ll continue to ignore more court rulings. They don’t care. It’s not “who’s gonna let me”; it’s “who’s gonna stop me”. Orangeboi et al have inserted their own loyalist flunkies into the leadership of all the organizations that can effectively function as the enforcement of court decisions. There are no guardrails anymore. “Checks and balances” is and always was a gentlemen’s agreement, and it’s no longer being honored.
That and the geography is an absolute mf for logistics. There’s like three good roads that cross the Sierra Nevada.
so there’s loads of bases
Staffed with federal employees. Fort Hunter isn’t going to protect Californians from the Pentagon. It is the Pentagon.
Also, and this is a much bigger deal, Gavin Newsome is a cowardly little parasite. He’s not going to side with Californians on this. He’s going to grovel on his belly and lick Trump’s shoes hoping he can convince The Donald to relent.
Most likely, this will just yet again be a defeat in court.
So long as DOGE runs the US Treasury, it hardly matters. If Trump starts cancelling payments and reversing transactions at a California scale, he’ll drag the whole country into recession overnight. Courts can issue orders, but only the Treasury has the power to authorize payments.
You’re assuming Trump wouldn’t also fuck over troops stationed here in California. Remember military personnel are reliant on local infrastructure in a lot of areas and if Trump starts fucking with it again the military may be caught in the crossfire.
I’m assuming the comment “declaring martial law” would require nat guard (natives) and stationed troops (federal) to attempt to impose order. Not sure what that has to do with local infra, but the last time they tried that (LA Riots) it didn’t go great. Doing it for a strictly political reason would likely result in some very hard decisions for a lot of nat guard and some federal career military. The Nat Guard and federales couldn’t even restore order in South Central when most of the state was in their corner, it’d be madness to think they could handle the whole state when it was over a pissing match.
California gets roughly $162.9 billion from the fed. California pays roughly $692 billion to the fed in taxes.
It’d be pretty easy to see them choosing to just withhold whatever Trump decided to deny them and say “fine, then we’ll just make up the offset, suck it”, and then things would get interesting indeed.
I thought ya meant that because of how militarized the state was it’d be hard for the state to respond. I was just stating you could cut water and electricity as a response to that.
But yeah you are right on the fact the response would at best be a mess, honestly if they were told to occupy the state they’d probably just sit around getting heat stroke and doing nothing.
(cue cut scene of Twenty-nine Palms) :D I think you’re right
That entire section of the hi desert may as well be summarized as “do nothing get heat stroke”.
Let’s get it over with.
To do what?
California can just stop aiding the IRS in collecting tax.
Remember, the state doesn’t pay taxes, individual citizens do by filling out their annual federal income taxes.
So, if “California” were to stop giving money to the federal government, the governor would basically need to convince individual citizens not to file their 1040.
And all of those people would have to clinch their assholes and hope Trump didn’t sick the IRS on them.
For private businesses sure, but Newsom can simply set up an escrow account and direct all state government entities to send their federal withholding to the new account instead.
California imposes a new law that companies operating in Cali cannot automatically collect federal income tax from Californian citizens.
Cali raises the state tax rate to match the current federal rate (could probably go lower actually, since Cali is subsidizing most of the red states).
Boom, no more taxes paid to the Fed.
Or… Cali’s creates a law where their own tax department collects the federal tax and pays it for their citizens.
If we had less of a coward in sacramento, id say they could back us.
They can stop taking federal taxes out of state employee pay
But then each of those people get walloped with a big ass 1040 payment from the feds at the end of the year. And they feds can chose to make an “example” of random people who don’t pay up.
Also employers would need to all simultaneously stop withholding taxes from employee paychecks for federal taxes, since you can’t just update your W-2 to a $0 withholding without claiming dependents, multiple other jobs, etc. You don’t “choose” your withholding, you just check the boxes that calculates the minimum withholding.
Californexit
Califexit. Or Cali Fecks Off depending where n your point of view.
That’s the problem California doesn’t send taxes to the Federal government. People and businesses pay directly to the government. There’s no mechanism to even stop it on a state level if a governor wanted to.
ban local/state agencies from assisting the IRS with tax enforcement
They don’t do that now. The IRS contacts the bank, that’s licensed as a bank by the federal government, and tells them to close your account. Usually the first step is to freeze your assets, then they start taking things. The banks aren’t going to argue, they’re not going to give up their entire business just to protect you, or a single state. Even if it is California.
That is an oversimplification. While the IRS can issue levies to federally regulated banks, it usually requires a formal legal process such as a tax lien or a court order. Banks do not comply automatically without proper documentation. State laws can influence how quickly or effectively the IRS operates, especially if the state limits data sharing, delays cooperation, or questions jurisdiction. Not all banks are federally chartered. Some are licensed at the state level and may face different legal pressures. California cannot stop the IRS entirely, but it can slow down enforcement, create legal friction, and raise the political stakes.
Not counting on the rules applying any longer.
No taxation without representation.
How could California do that when taxes are paid directly by the taxee to the IRS?
Change your withholding, then only pay state tax.
ban local/state agencies from assisting the IRS with tax enforcement
Start cutting power, water, and gas to federal offices and facilities, let’s see if they can do jack shit when it’s 90 degrees outside and 110 inside. Mind you that is just me thinking reconciliation is stupid and shouldn’t be considered as a possibility.
That’s what Trump wants, to burn it all down.
West coast has enough intelligence and money to navigate without the federal govt.
That’s not the point. By cutting off water electricity etc you are helping Trump dismantle the federal government. You know that Trump guy that said “we want federal employees to hate going into work” well congratulations you just helped him big time.
Those very workers might be happy working for the state should CA make that offer to workers helping manage dams etc, particularly if compensation is the same or better. Organizationally, there would be some disarray, but…
It’d be interesting to directly head-hunt the federal offices until they were empty, even if it were just temporary.
Sigh. Federal and state cover different things. If you think you can dismantle the fed and everyone can just go to the state and everything will be the same, then you really are no different than the Trumpers that want to burn everything down. I’m out of this conversation.
I was wondering about this. The new BBB or whatever increases SALT to 40k. I live in Jersey. I would have no problem with NJ just taxing me 40k outright. You just pay 40k to live in NJ. And then I just deduct that 40k from my federal tax burden, bringing it down below 0. What’s stopping states from doing this?
The irs wouldn’t recognize the deduction and you would still owe the entire amount to the federal government.
I’m curious why you say this, and I’m not trying to be argumentative. I pay 11k for property taxes, and so with this I get to deduct that 11k from my federal taxes. And if you mean to say that the IRS and the Feds would be like hey, you can’t do that, yeah, you’re probably right, and I agree. I’m just curious if you had some other rationale for the suggestion. I am no tax expert.
It would be considered tax evasion. Deductions not authorized by federal statute, have no affect on federal tax laws. Start following your own rules, and they will come knocking on your door. Of course with staffing cuts, it could be years from now when they show up.
SALT is authorized.
Yeah, I guess I’m still a little confused. You’re allowed to deduct State and Local taxes on your federal return. Now it’s 10k, the BBB raises it to 40k. I’m just saying states should levy a tax to maximize the SALT deduction for everyone, because you’re allowed to do it. But it’s not going to happen, just me being silly.
I was misunderstanding a bit myself. I was thinking you meant by yourself. As a state, California could possibly increase property taxes to maximize everyone’s salt deduction. As more of a long term solution it might even be an idea depending on California constitutional law. More likely though, they would just have to fight the illegal impoundment in the court. While it would likely take months to get done, changing tax law the the affects of that would take years.
That is exactly what should happen.
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.
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.
Add NY, MA, AND NJ and you have a block that is on quite solid ground.
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.
Except that’s exactly what the Heritage Foundation has been wanting for decades so they can turn the US into an official Christofascist nation.
I can’t wait to be the United Coca-Cola States of Unilever America.
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.
