As tensions escalate between California and the Trump administration over immigration, another potential battlefront is emerging over taxes.
The spat began with reports that the Trump administration is considering cutting funding for California’s university system, the largest higher education system in the nation with about 12% of all U.S. enrolled students.
In response, Gov. Gavin Newsom wrote Friday afternoon in a social media post that California provides about $80 billion more in taxes to the federal government than it receives in return.
“Maybe it’s time to cut that off, @realDonaldTrump,” Newsom said.
just fucking do it, you asshole.
One thing that might be misunderstood here is that California not paying taxes wouldn’t harm Trump. Trump’s goal, made clear from a sum of lots of behaviors, is the destruction of the United States. Defaulting on its debt, zeroing its GDP, destroying the livelihood of its inhabitants, and ultimately killing its war machine, so that they can’t fight Putin’s army. California’s lack of payment may just hasten that goal.
I don’t think Trump is as much of a lackey that’s following the plan as he is a useful idiot that’s easy to manipulate. I believe that Trump believes that the US is the biggest and the best - it suits the same image he has of himself as the biggest and best leader - but he’s so dumb and narcissistic that he won’t realize that he’s being led on a leash.
I don’t think Trump consciously wants to destroy America, I think he wants to make it what he considers to be great (a militarily powerful dictatorship built on worshiping him), but he’s absolutely fine with making it weaker in the interim if it either:
A. Makes him gain something
B. Feeds his egoI don’t think he is a puppet of Putin. I think he really, really likes money and power, that’s it. He does things to further his own grip of the country, thus increasing his power. Or, he does things to increase his wealth. Nothing more. He likes authoritarian leaders because they have more of a hold on their respective countries (a weird form of respect), or because they give him money (or expensive planes).
But if it’s not Putin’s fault,
- US people would have to face the reality that there’s stupid people among them
- and there’d be no “external threat” to distract from internal problems!
It might put California on the track to surviving Trump’s destruction and becoming a civilized country opposed to Putin, unlike other US states.
MOTHERFUCKING DO IT
Stop bending the knee to a felon rapist traitor who uses the military to assault American citizens.
Stop providing welfare to failing red states who elect felon rapist traitors who target blue states.
This would be madlad behaviour if it actually happens
CA is the forth largest economy; it would destroy the red state fuckheads if they stopped paying federal taxes. The rest of us follow suit and we defund the motherfuckers stinking up the government.
If you are sending our military against OUR OWN FUCKING PEOPLE we should not be PAYING FOR IT. My taxes don’t go to that fascist bullshit
🖕🤬🖕 Fuck drumpf and every bootlicker that got him (probably illegally) elected
The guys that are currently restoring confederate monuments would perform a takeover of the state by the federal government. US states no longer share core values, sometimes very hypocritically so.
Holy fucking shit. I’m amazed, I was just saying the other day that this would eventually get into this point. Didn’t think it’d be this week
Fascism only has one speed: Blitzkrieg.
Any other speed would be slow enough for people to have enough time to band together and organize a resistance to this horseshit.
That’s literally the only playbook. Break everything: Go fast. Hit people with so much horseshit they are still stuck trying to process the one from 2 weeks ago, because since then 5 other constitutional crisis’ have happened and now they’re deporting both of your neighbors.
That’s not really the case, though. This rise of fascism has been building for decades now. It’s been a slow, steady, drip drip drip. Perhaps not so noticeable except from the outside - Americans are embedded in a pervasive atmosphere of propaganda. The Republicans have been getting more and more authoritarian over the years, more and more extreme, and the Democrats have been letting them. It’s been more than four years since the last violent coup attempt, after all, and those were the same people behind this play.
It’s not progressing fast. You just haven’t noticed its progress until now, when it’s nearly done.
We’re not talking about the rise of fascism. It took decades for that to ferment in Germany and Italy as well.
We’re talking about when they seize power. Then they make their move.
We’re talking about the powergrab of fascists once they’ve laid the groundwork.
That’s the part they need to move lightning fast to achieve a result, before resistance can organize against them. That’s the part in history we’re at right now.
At this rate they’ll be deploying the Marines to LA’s streets by July!
Um aren’t they doing this now?
It is, sorry - I am making a sardonic joke about how American democracy is collapsing unexpectedly fast
Fucking do it. I’ll cum buckets.
I don’t think there’s really a way to do this, since federal taxes are paid directly to the fed without state involvement. This is just to poke the bear, which I am all for.
Companies, no. But the state employs a lot of people.
The hypothetical way to do it is severely penalize companies within California that pay federal tax. Make it so financially burdonsome they have to relocate or stop paying federal tax of their own accord. This is just what’s been suggested before when this has come up.
I thought you were going to talk about the physical improbability of cumming buckets.
This is a test comment. Will delete.
Good. Keep poking until he has a heart attack. If he recovers, rinse and repeat until we get it right.
I’m all for it too, but keep in mind that successors to dictators are never better; only worse. It only ever gets worse.
~Hide your kids. Hide your couch!~
This dictator is the leader of the GOP, a cult of personality. That’s not easily replaced
This dictator is merely a puppet; plain and simple. The real Palpatine is someone else. Maybe it’s Putin, or maybe it’s Thiel. We haven’t gotten to that episode yet.
But this puppet is who the cultists at the bottom support. They won’t get their support for anyone else so easily, if they even need them at that point.
I would argue that now that the GOP has all three branches of government, Darth Trump is expendable.
Be sure to hydrate if you do.
I don’t think I want a bucket coming out if that particular hole.
Prude.
If just New York and California did this, it would cripple some red states
All red states. It would cripple the country and thus ALL red states.
Good. Even my state provides more, than we get. Fuck em! Let them have their Jesus Land. That will make America great, no red states.
Same, I’m in one of the few red states that actually makes money. But honestly I’m at the point where I’m just like whatever. Fuck it, right? Just burn it down so our rot doesn’t infect the rest of the world. Seriously, this would be a mercy killing at this point. Please don’t let this spread.
In a shocking twist rural Californian conservatives now want to pay federal taxes.
stopping paying taxes is one of the essential elements of a “soft secession”, one where the state disintegrates from the federation, but not “all at once”, but “step by step”.
Maybe it was Trump’s plan after all to cause a number of states to secede? After all, GOP has talked about Texas’ secession for a while, iirc?
Project 2025 shows that the Republicans have at least one person with the ability to plan long term strategy.
So private prison giant GEO group Donates heavily to Trump‘s campaign. Trump has ice indiscriminately pick people up for “deportation“ where they are sent to prisons run by GEO group. Concerned citizens protest ICE actions in California. Trump illegally deploys national guard without the consent of California’s government to attack law abiding citizens in California. Gavin Newsome, Liberal democrat and defender of capitalism, uses legal tactics to fight back against illegal activities. To me this act rings hollow. Please someone tell me what I am missing, because I would love to have a glimmer of hope these days.
Don’t bet on hope from this. California can’t win on its own.this needs to build significantly before it has an effect.
I’m not sure how legal it is for CA to stop paying taxes. At the very least, it’s an attempt to attack where it hurts, which is in the money.
Calexit is becoming less and less of a meme every day.
I’d be so God damn happy if we left this shithole nation. And opened up for refugees of the failed state of America.
Trump does not give one rat fuck of an ass about the law. Why the fuck should anyone do anything for the federal government and pay taxes at this point?
If blue states were to band together and do this, it would bankrupt Trump’s fascist federal government pretty quickly. Maybe a blue state Articles of Confederation is in order.
California, Oregon, and Washington are all donor states that contribute a combined ~$160 billion more to the federal government than they get back each year. They also make up $3.1 trillion of the GDP, they have all mainland west coast ports, and they’re major agricultural states. They’d honestly be better off if they banded together to Bugs Bunny off.
There’s a bigger thing people tend to forget: shipping ports. There aren’t a lot of natural harbors on the west coast of North America. California has three of them (LA, Long Beach, San Fransisco) and Washington has two (Seattle and Tacoma).
Want to trade anything with the rest of the world? The east coast and Mississippi ports aren’t going to cut it. Don’t want to trade anything? The US economy just went into depression.
Feel free to join Canada my friends.
I remember seeing it as “america” vs “dumbfuckistan”
Breaks down when you start seeing all the blueberries in the ketchup and you realize that’s where huge portions of the population actually live.
So much of that red state territory is vacant real estate. A big chunk more is functionally disenfranchised (Indian reservations, migrant labor communities, large prison populations).
This illustrates regions of political control. But it is in no way reflective of homogeneous popular opinion.
Shit, even doing shades of purple without getting more granular than the state level would change the map drastically. This winner take all bullshit is the dumbest part of the electoral college.
America needs ranked choice voting. Unfortunately the GOP has been banning it in every state they can.
What is a donor state?
Indeed, cbsnews. What is a “donor state”?
Maybe if you could use that term a few dozen more times, other outlets could pick it up and it would eventually back up into Fox News’ talking points where they’d have to either lie utterly, or risk their viewers’ comprehension that red states take money from blue states. Charity, let’s say. MAGA heads would temporarily be offline.
