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.
I’m not a fan of Newsom, but get it dude.
Ok, this is an idea I had after reading numerous comments on this post. You’re all asking how this would work … hear me out.
California declares its own currency, the “California dollar”. Wages earned in California dollars wouldn’t be taxed like US Dollars.
There are some issues to work out; I think the IRS does tax your foreign assets … some … but I think that this scheme could work.
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What if they got into a monetary union with Canada and linked Calidollar with the Canadollar with the same value and entirely interchangeable the way the Belgian and Luxemburg franc used to work?
Soundish monetary policy. In the end it’s a fallacy that has never even been tried on a theoretical level. We just did it and people were like, ok. We’ve been kept afloat by monetary and military threats. The policy makes no sense on any level, that infinite debt is perfectly fine or normal.
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
Can anyone explain what this even means? Like W2 taxes go directly from employer to federal right? What kind of control can California actually do to stop monetary flow to the federal government?
Or would everyone have to manually adjust their W2 withholdings to boycott?
I guess it would be something like “Don’t pay your federal taxes, Californians, we will not cooperate with the federal government if they try to collect.”
just fucking do it, you asshole.
It’s grandstanding…but it pisses off the Orange Turdburgler so I can’t complain too much.
YES
Cross posted to BoycottUnitedStates @ europe.pub
Hey, now we’re even boycotting ourselves!
…
More seriously:
Welp, I don’t see another option than lie down and roll over, but also, if Newsom actually does it, this will basically cause a civil war… or at best a ‘Russia is pacifying Chechen terrorists’ kind of situation.
Hope everyone has their popcorn / bugout bags ready.
There is no way Newsom has this much balls. There is no way he could possible be this based.
Right? Golly, I hope he proves me wrong.
I barely know anything about Newsom’s track record, but based on the last few months dude has the biggest balls I’ve seen on any US politician in a long time.
And he HATES Donald Trump lol. Newsom’s been spitting fire in the news. It certainly feels like things have finally gotten personal for him.
In a shocking twist rural Californian conservatives now want to pay federal taxes.
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.
I would recommend getting armed if this were to happen…just in case.
Bought my first gun at the beginning of this year. I’ve shot many guns before but never had the urge to own one until recently. AR15, figured I’d need something more than a handgun in case things get out of hand.
Been saying that we’re headed for balkanization since the clown won his first term. Not seeing any reason to change that prediction.
balkanization
For uninformed people like myself:
Balkanization is the process of a country or region fragmenting into smaller, often hostile units, typically driven by ethnic, cultural, religious, or geopolitical differences. The term originates from the Balkan Peninsula, a region that has experienced significant fragmentation throughout history, and the term is now used more broadly to describe similar processes elsewhere.
I’m not looking forward for the chaos preceding the emergence of the next superpower if US balkanization happens.
Isn’t it just China at this point?
US balkanization is exactly the chaos preceding the emergence of the next superpower.
California, without the constant drain on its resources.
I think that’s incredibly wishful thinking.
Why would you think that? It’s already the world’s 4th largest economy with the drain.
China
Maybe. They’re floundering since Xi put economics on a lower tier than his own power.
The EU could do it, but it will require sharp thinking and sharper action.
My guess is that Newsom’s only angle would be to say “on X date, all state employee income tax withholdings will go into escrow.” Thats about a quarter million employees out of 20m people filing for taxes in CA.
Then the state would have to start coding and integrating that new system which - would be a HUGE pain in the ass. And while that was happening, this would likely be getting shut down by the SCOTUS.
Not trying to be a Debby downer for people that want to stick it to Trump. At first glance, it looks like leverage, but when you look closer, you see that Newsom can only control a small piece of the pie.
As Trump has shown, legality doesn’t matter if you can drag out the legislative process long enough. Clearly, California withholding taxes will be struck down by the courts, but the damage will be done if it can be dragged out long enough to disrupt the bond market even further than Taco already has.
Although some of his shit gets shut down pretty fast. Some of his immigration stuff got put on ice fast by the SOCTUS.
I think the bigger impact here is how it brings the tax imbalance into the conversation. Look at how effective that argument has been at fuelling Albertan separatism. It’s especially effective on Conservatives, who are absolutely suckers for anything that suggests they’re getting a bad deal. “We pay too much for too little” is something that he could easily get most of California to rally around.
By pushing this line, Newsom is driving a wedge between California and the US. I couldn’t possibly say whether he’s actually trying to fuel separatism, or simply gesturing at it as a threat, but that’s the implied danger here.
Honestly I fully expect it to just be saber rattling to drag it out until trump capitulates, which he almost always does when the going gets tough.
Newsom is a shoe-in for the democratic candidate for presidency in 2028, and his largely neoliberal policies combined with his charisma make him an obvious choice for the DNC. However I do think the DNC needs to try running a Midwestern Dem from a battleground state sometime because they can really break a lot of the caricatures that the GOP likes to paint on the national stage about Dems
also depends how many other states follow suit, if any.
Feel free to join Canada my friends.
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.
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I would really like to come visit if the road border near Detroit is still relatively safe. My passport and driver’s license have the same name and gender so I might have a chance.
They might still get you on skin colour, ethno-linguistic origin of name, left-wing political affiliations, religious affiliations (or lack thereof), type of employment or specific employer, perceived accent, or a boarder agent just having a very bad or a very good day.
If the military was being deployed before for so little reason then hold on to your butts, the entire US military will be thrown in to the mix and California will be treated as an occupied state in no time if they touch the money.
Doubt they’ll be paying much taxes if everyone is a prisoner in their own homes
The federal government will just levy more taxes upon the remaining states. At least 10 thousand good dubloons and various gold statues and concubines per year
Join Canada.
Most Americans would be unhappy in Canada. You don’t have the right to own a gun in Canada. Employees have rights in Canada. We have actual religious freedom in Canada, not the right to discriminate based on “religion”. Women have the right to choose in Canada. Hate speech isn’t protected in Canada. We’re a VERY different country even compared to your most liberal states.
Don’t threaten me with a good time lol
There’s also a lot more rules about everything and y’all pay more taxes than us. Nowhere is perfect. Source : helped a friend open a business in Vancouver during the pandemic and eventually got shut down by the city for ‘permits’ despite having used the business to raise over $200k CAD for charity
EDIT: also, there aren’t any school shootings, even though there are plenty of trump supporters
If you compare taxes paid to what you would spend on medicine and health care or other out of pocket, you would be further ahead in Canada. While not perfect, we have social systems to try to level the playing field for all. With deductions and tax credits my 22-24% tax bracket is actually only about 13% paid tax
Canada has more regulations, that’s for sure, but that’s why our banking industry survived the US banking meltdown. Our tax rates are comparable but very few Canadians go bankrupt because of medical debt. I was diagnosed with Hodgkins Lymphoma last year. I got an ultrasound, two chest x-rays, a CT scan, three PET scans, two pulmonary function studies, an echo cardiogram, a PICC line, 12 PICC care appointments, 20 bloodwork appointments, and six months of chemo and my out of pocket expenses were less than $4,000 which included parking, gas, and meals for my driver. We have school shootings but they are very rare and far less deadly than in the US because of strict gun regulations.
Sounds much like a blue state. You don’t have the right to own a gun in MA for example. You have a right to submit an application for your local police chief to deny or approve based on how much they like you.
You do have the right to own at gun in MA as guaranteed by the Second Amendment. No such right exists in Canada. In Canada gun ownership is a privilege which can be revoked and which has strict training, licensing, and handling requirements.
In MA and a few other states gun ownership is a privelege that is granted based on personal bias and can be revoked. They also have training licensing and handling requirements.
Looking at the laws online the only major difference I see is in CA you can no longer buy a handgun due to the freeze.
Gun laws by state vary wildly.
In MA and a few other states gun ownership is a privilege that is granted based on personal bias and can be revoked. They also have training licensing and handling requirements.
I did a little bit of reading and I don’t think that’s true. You have the protected constitutional right to own guns as guaranteed by the second amendment but the exercise of that right is subject to licensing and permitting requirements and may be suspended under some circumstances (such as your being designated a danger to society.) (This sounds more like a, “mah rights!” argument than anything else to me. )
That’s quite different from Canada where you have literally no right to own a gun at all.
Its not though, there is literally constitution legal contention over the issue. There are a few states like MA, NY and a few others where they call it a "may issue"state because it’s not a right in those states.
That’s not how the US constitution works.
Strict is a loose term. A Canadian neighbour had more than 10 guns, overkill for city apartment living…but if you have a valid license its fair game
Strict by American standards. My 16 year old son is on his way into the house to get my keys so that I can unlock the ammo box to give him .22 quiets so that he can try out his new Winchester rifle that arrived by mail today.
Canadian kids 12 through 17 can apply for their gun license. Or If you are with a licensed owner you can handle guns. I went hunting with my dad in the teen days. Canada is not as strict as the US folk believe, especially if you live rurally and are hunting, you can be under 12. We just don’t use it to attach our identity too like gun nuts in the USA
My 16 year old is out shooting his brand new arrived today .22 right now. He has a PL (possession license) while I have a PAL (possession and acquisition license.) He is allowed to possess guns without supervision but he is not allowed to acquire them.
Used to be that way here as well. Gun nuts existed but even most of the right thought they were crazy and pathetic.
Grew up in the deep south. Guns were a tool, back then. Most people didn’t own a handgun, those that did tended to have one or two. .38 special and a .22 pistol for plinking. Like other tools they are toys as well so people like guns and have a lot of fun with them. Seeing them as weapons to kill people was a distant afterthought other than safety considerations.
Most gun owners had only long guns. .22 for small game and plinking, scoped bolt or lever 30-06 for larger game. Several gauge of shotguns for different types of hunting and skeet shooting.
Live in a blue/purple state now. Our home is an old farmhouse. My study has a gun rack built in to the closet original to the house. It is sized to fit that use pattern and fits my family like a glove.
I gotta go check my groundhog traps, cute little fuckers destroy foundations and you aren’t even allowed to catch and release, by law you are supposed to dispatch and not relocate. I dispatch with a long barrel .22 revolver.
Realistically though, if you’re not a f***ing moron and don’t have a criminal record, it’s not hard to get your PAL and the ability to have long-guns. It’s a day-course.
The RPAL is a bit more work and more restrictions in terms of transport etc, but it’s not necessary for most people that would just want to go hunting or target shooting (except target shoots with handguns).
IMO - as somebody who has a PAL - the rules around responsible ownership in Canada are pretty reasonable. Some of the recent stuff over particular firearms is dumb especially with the lacklustre enforcement against trafficking etc, but stuff around safe storage and use 100% makes sense to me whereas the “public carry” stuff in the US is kinda horrifying to me.
Agreed. I’m not a gun owner but was around guns as a kid (dad was a hunter) and he was super into safety of the whole thing. Except my friends dad wasn’t so safe, he had us reloading shotgun shells via purpose built relaoding carousal as kids. My friend had no qualms about it, but I’m like dude make sure the primer isn’t skewed when the shell comes down, careful with that. I had visions of a crimped primer setting off the powder lol
Don’t be a republican and confuse an electoral map with people. Most Americans support all of that.
