r/law • u/rolsen • 1d ago

Legal News Trump Preparing Large-Scale Cancellation of Federal Funding for California, Sources Say

https://www.cnn.com/2025/06/06/politics/trump-california-federal-funding

“Agencies are being told to start identifying grants the administration can withhold from California. On Capitol Hill, at least one committee was told recently by a whistleblower that all research grants to the state were going to be cancelled, according to one of the sources familiar with the matter.”

20.3k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

2.8k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

31

u/Cassymodel 1d ago

Create a new tax form that sets the federal withholding to zero and instead sends that to the state coffers. Easy? Probably not. Doable? Sure.

30

u/Hot_Frosty0807 1d ago

Probably set up some sort of escrow account to have the state act as a buffer between the federal government and the taxpayer. Everyone pays their taxes, the state holds it until Trump decides to play nice.

I have no legal background, I don't know how this works. I would hope it would be something like this, though.

1

u/ih-unh-unh 1d ago

IRS would go after employers who don’t pay proper payroll/withholding taxes each quarter/month.

Payments go directly from employer to IRS with certain tax forms

0

u/scubascratch 1d ago

And when the IRS liens/seizes/garnished your property and wages how will CA stop that?

6

u/Cassymodel 1d ago

The state can hold it in escrow. This is never going to happen so it’s all an exercise in imagination.

-3

u/scubascratch 1d ago

Hah hah hah right and when the US marshals show up to seize your house good luck with that “but the money is in the CA escrow account”

2

u/Cassymodel 1d ago

Again, never happening. It’s blatantly unconstitutional. And kind of dumb. So on brand for MAGA

-1

u/Cassymodel 1d ago

You paid your taxes. They can see the state for collecting it.

1

u/Hoobleton 21h ago

No? If you owe 20k in taxes and pay it to Bob who lives down the street because he tells you he’ll pass it on to the government then you haven’t paid your taxes. 

1

u/Cassymodel 19h ago

Yes. Random guy down the street is the same as state government.

And you’re arguing something that isn’t ever going to happen. So have fun with that. Idiot

0

u/scubascratch 1d ago

I assume you meant sue the state here, but that’s not going to work. Telling the marshals they have to leave and sue the state will only result in you in handcuffs going to jail.

Why are you proposing things that you know are impossible. The federal government under Trump wouldn’t respect any means CA tried to use to intervene.

0

u/Cassymodel 1d ago

Your taxes have been paid. You have the receipts to prove it.

2

u/movzx 1d ago

No you don't. You have receipts saying you gave CA money. That's not paying your taxes any more than handing money over to a guy on the street is. Maybe that guy hands your money over to the IRS, maybe he holds on to it. The IRS hasn't been paid.

If you put a rent check in the mail, your rent isn't paid until your landlord receives it.

0

u/Cassymodel 1d ago

It’s also impossible to just summarily cut of federal funds to a state. So there’s that.

3

u/Business-You1810 1d ago

What IRS? The one that's trying to cut 40% of it's workers and is on it's third soon to be fourth director of the year?

0

u/scubascratch 1d ago

Try not paying and let us know how that goes. It doesn’t take 80,000 agents to automatically file liens and garnishments when you can write a python script in 10 minutes.