The cuts to several states come amid an escalating fraud fallout fueled by a dubious YouTube investigation of Minnesota day cares.
The Trump administration on Monday said it had slashed billions in social services funds to a handful of blue states as part of its escalating response to new and unproven fraud allegations in Minnesota.
The Department of Health and Human Services will freeze $10 billion worth of federal grants to California, Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota, and New York, an HHS official told HuffPost, confirming news first reported by The New York Post.
It’s not clear whether the freeze was inspired by specific fraud allegations or solely for political reasons. Officials did not immediately provide a public explanation.
Why would blue states still pay into the federal government when they’re not getting anything out of it anymore? Seems to me they’re financing their own abusive relationship. I don’t understand how this works. Aren’t blue states the only reason these crappy red states are even still slightly functional?
I’m not American but it seems to me that collectively the blue states would hold a lot of power if they’re the financial backbone of the country. Can’t they swing their weight around a little?
You would think. Our stupid country has senators based on statehood rather than representation of population. The pocket of Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Montana has ~3.5 million people combined, yet has 4x the voting power of California which has 10x the population. It’s a garbage system.
Also if you look at virtually any statistic by state. Red states are a dumpster fire. Literacy, STDs, teen pregnancy, income, obesity, etc.
Only a complete fucking moron could be a republican. The evidence of their failure and unnecessary cruelty is overwhelming.
You are correct. Unfortunately, state governments don’t have a hand in federal taxation. Employers typically withhold the estimated amount from employee’s paychecks, and at the beginning of each year everyone submits a tax form. If they paid over their obligation, they get a refund; if they underpaid, they owe money.
Even if someone opts out of tax withholdings, they’re responsible for sending their taxes to the federal government each year; typically through a third-party for-profit business (especially now that Republicans trashed the recent IRS pilot which allowed people to file their taxes directly to the federal government for free).
The only solution would be for every resident of that state to individually opt out of federal tax withholdings from their employer, but then they’d be individually liable for submitting their taxes each year. While the IRS doesn’t currently have the staffing to handle that if everyone does it, that would require a level of collective trust-in-ones-fellows that simply doesn’t exist in this era.
It would be much better if states could offer their protection, but apparently states can’t even keep ICE out so the IRS would be no different…
I already do this because they seize my refund to pay off student loans.
That sucks, dude
Taxes levied by the US federal government are against individuals and businesses directly. States also levy their own taxes independently. So these funds paid to the federal government (largely) don’t go through state hands.
Ah I see. Then it makes sense. The population itself would have to stop paying taxes. That’s a bit more complicated because then individuals would be sanctioned by the government and people probably don’t want to take that risk.
They could withhold taxes on state employees. That would be easy. If they wanted to go full second civil war, They could pass laws making it illegal for companies to pay taxes to the federal government.
So the states can just say “hey everyone, until we say to resume, just dont bother paying your federal taxes anymore and we’ll keep the feds outside our borders”?
What are they gonna do, build a wall?
Individuals don’t pay their own taxes, their employers do. When you “pay your taxes” at the end of the year, you are just paying difference between what you should have paid and what you did pay. The exception being contract workers.
And if you don’t pay your taxes, the government can just seize the money from your bank accounts. Of course, if everybody stopped paying, employers included, the federal government would have a hard time processing it all, but if it wasn’t a sudden massive stop, they would just start raiding people’s bank accounts, probably without due process.
Except they can’t physically keep the federal government away their people, just look at what ICE is doing. It would also prevent people from traveling out of state, or risk getting arrested in a red state.
Even MAGAs are so upset with this regime that they are proposing a tax strike. This seems like a cause everyone could support.
I was kinda anti tax evasion (even legal tax evasion) prior to the second Trump admin. Nowadays, I’m in support of everyone doing their best to send as little money to the federal government as possible.
FYI “legal tax evasion” is called tax avoidance. It’s a form of direct action against a government that doesn’t represent you at all.
I’m happy to pay my California taxes.
Same
Well, they could, MAGAs don’t mind abusing their authority at all, even when they DON’T have it, but Dems think its impolite, and people are watching, and demonstrating politeness and non-confrontational dialogue are the most important things to Democratic leaders, even more than winning races and protecting American Democracy from corrupt traitors, pedophiles, and rapists. Smugness is all-important.