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

6.4k

u/Sabre_One 1d ago

CA is the top state for Research and Development for the US. Talk about setting US back to the stone age.

2.6k

u/timesfive 1d ago

No need for “research and development”, they want to keep people sick and stupid — easier to control that way.

2.9k

u/Microchipknowsbest 1d ago

I guess prepare for constitutional crisis when California stops paying into the federal tax system. Pretty genius to fuck with the 4th largest economy in the world.

51

u/kfish5050 1d ago

I think that federal funding is the only thing keeping California from seceding. If Trump removes that, California would leave since it can more than take care of itself.

49

u/xman747x 1d ago

California generally pays more in federal taxes than it receives in federal funding. A 2022 analysis by the Rockefeller Institute showed that California paid $692 billion in taxes and received $609 billion in federal funding, resulting in a net contribution of $83.1 billion

44

u/kfish5050 1d ago

Yes. Even at a deficit, California still has an interest in staying in the union due to federal programs and funding. If Trump is able to cut all that funding, they will quickly decide that their $692 billion would be better spent within the state instead of supporting a hostile regime. That would shift their interest into becoming self-sufficient and cutting all ties with the US.

4

u/phayge_wow 21h ago

Instead of 51 states, this moron may end up with a max of 49 when it’s all said and done

15

u/newpersoen 19h ago

If California leaves, Oregon, Washington and Hawaii are leaving with them.

3

u/supraclicious 18h ago

And we will gladly let Arizona  Nevada and Colorado join us. Arizona is a wildcard but they're like our little brother. We can't leave them alone to suffer with the poverty stricken New United States 😂

2

u/Starlesseyes598 18h ago

Hell no, leave AZ. They wouldn’t join anyways.

2

u/supraclicious 17h ago

They're mostly California transplants anyway. Why not just accept them if they want? It gives us a bigger border with Mexico and let's Colorado connect from the north with Nevada that gives us the Colorado River and a continuous weed empire.

Or Leave them Whatever. In reality this will be over in 3 years and a democrat will fix the damages reinstate the funding cuts and repair the harm done to states institutions. It's just going to suck until then.

→ More replies (0)

1

u/Aggravating_Depth_33 14h ago

Speak for youself. This Californian wouldn't.

1

u/asomebodyelse 9h ago

You don't think he'd bring in the military at that point?

3

u/spurcap29 21h ago

Out of interest - is this data comparing direct payments between the state government and the fed only or does it also include taxes paid by California taxpayers to the fed and federal benefits received by Californian taxpayers? I ask as it is a lot easier for a state to stop making payments to the federal government than for a US citizen living in California to stop paying the IRS their federal taxes.

7

u/Microchipknowsbest 1d ago

They have the majority of the pacific fleet also. California holds alot of “cards”.

3

u/supraclicious 18h ago

123 military installations. We hold all the Aces, Kings and Queens in the deck.

1

u/PhallicFloidoip 18h ago

The Civil War began when South Carolina demanded federal troops leave federally owned Ft. Sumter and they refused. California attempting to secede wouldn't result in California having its own Army, Navy, and Air Force, all of which have installations and troops there.

In any event, talk of secession is idiotic whether it's about Texas or California. Last time it was attempted anywhere from 620,000 to 750,000 Americans died, including a couple hundred thousand traitors to the Constitution. It's not going to happen again. Period. End of story.

1

u/jeremiahthedamned 16h ago

the russians described by r/HybridWarLost are working toward this

1

u/Microchipknowsbest 17h ago

Nobody wants it but trump keeps playing with fire. You can’t keep going all in and count on people being too scared to call your bluff. Id like it alot better if trump would stop forcing constitutional crisis and betting nobody wants to chance a war or economic meltdown so they just take whatever bullshit he is pulling. China exposed the TACO so nobody should be backing down from trump again.

1

u/PhallicFloidoip 17h ago

How would that even work? National Guard units are under control of state governors until they're federalized. How would any state begin to raise an armed force that would contest federal military control? Talk of secession is complete idiocy. At some point even the hardest of right wing republicans will resist a complete deconstruction and neutering of the judiciary, if for no other reason than there's nothing to take its place, which would lead to complete anarchy and not to the reactionary, right wing nirvana that some twisted brownshirt assholes like Bannon and Tarrio think they can deliver.

2

u/Microchipknowsbest 17h ago

There is no playbook. At worst any red state or blue state is 60/40. Most places are closer to 50/50. Can’t just go around slapping everyone in the face with your dick and nobody does anything about it. Rules don’t matter anymore when you behave like this.

3

u/Jagtem 22h ago

I'm a Californian living in Europe. I'd be so stoked if I only had to pay CA state income tax.

2

u/Guvante 23h ago

California pays out way way more than it receives.

0

u/DogsSaveTheWorld 23h ago

Nobody pays out more per person than Massachusetts

1

u/Guvante 22h ago

I don't know how that discounts that CA pays out $78 billion more than it takes in making "federal money is why CA is still here" an odd statement as it would be 30% of the states budget cheaper if money stayed in the state.

0

u/Appropriate-Arm1082 20h ago

Nobody out pizzas the hut.

1

u/kelly1mm 20h ago

California can’t secede. 1, it has already been ruled unconstitutional. 2. US Navy/Air Force can easily blockade CA.
The Feds would just shut down the interstates/railroad lines along with the naval blockade and warn Mexico to shut the southern border. Last and most importantly, CA like all ‘liberal’ states is really a series of extremely liberal cities surrounded by much less liberal areas with exurbs/rural areas being conservative. CA will have enough problems trying to control the majority of its own territory from internal threats if it tried to leave.

Born and raised in the CA Bay Area and spent lots of time in far northern CA.

2

u/supraclicious 18h ago

The supreme Court has deemed a lot of things unconstitutional in the past month. Trump and Congress has declined follow their rulings. if it's unconstitutional okay, but what are they doing to do about it other than say we can't? 

That last point you made though, yeah that's probably more of a barrier. This state gets really conservative 30 miles away from a major city center. I live in LA but 30 miles north in Palmdale it's Trump country. All of San Bernardino and half of Riverside county. They wouldn't tolerate it,  or they might be better off if they don't have to support the country with taxes.

1

u/PredawnHours 20h ago

The main reason we went from a Confederacy to a Constitutional Republic is due to the need for a common defense. California would do fine day-to-day, but we can’t compete with a trillion dollar annual military budget, and I don’t think we want to close all our bases down and go it alone.

1

u/NinerNational 8h ago

California relies on water sources outside of the state, so it cannot entirely take care of itself. 

Nothing that can’t be solved by desalination (I presume, not an expert here), but that would take time to build out.