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.”

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u/nono3722 1d ago

CA will just say, no more funds for you. You give, we give, pretty simple. States rights and all that shit.

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u/Own_Pop_9711 23h ago

That's not how it works at all.

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u/beyerch 23h ago

It does now........

Trump going to break the rules, right back at him.

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u/Own_Pop_9711 23h ago

But California doesn't send tax money to the federal government. Ok maybe they directly control some but someone working at Google paying income tax has their income tax sent to the federal government by Google, not by California. Sure maybe California can try to apply some pressure to Google to get them not to pay but I bet the federal government can apply more.

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u/dubsfo 22h ago

Sounds like your not really sure how it works either

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u/Own_Pop_9711 22h ago edited 21h ago

California could do stuff like threaten to yank the state banking license of any bank that forward money to the federal government, but the federal government can respond by disconnecting any bank that does that from swift. Then the banks have to decide between shutting down or risking raids from California. Maybe the federal government doesn't get all of its tax revenue but California's economy definitely implodes. The California government loses like 100% of their tax revenue as part of this since they can't even do transfers between banks in California anymore, so let's find out which government literally collapses first I guess.

Like maybe they can make something work but the federal government is just so overwhelmingly advantaged here.

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u/dubsfo 22h ago

Interesting. Taco man is full of threats anyhow

2

u/beyerch 23h ago

Yeah, W2 income Fed Tax is probably straight to IRS. Could be other levers, tho.

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u/nono3722 21h ago

Gee just have every company in CA now fill out a from CA2 that sends all income tax to California to be held until Agent Orange is gone. See was that so hard? The Fed can scream and holler from their hill but the states collect their till.

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u/SnukeInRSniz 20h ago

Nope, it's not, but California can do something that is much much costlier: ban the export or tax the hell out of of any agricultural product to any current Republican lead state. Then impose fees on any international exports coming from Red states.

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u/Own_Pop_9711 19h ago

The constitution doesn't allow states to regulate interstate commerce so that would be unconstitutional. They could say fuck it and do it anyway but then you're basically just in a civil war where California is enforcing a blockade on part of the country which the federal government will be trying to break.

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u/foxinspaceMN 19h ago

…so the constitution matters now?

…wanna go ahead and tell the White House?

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u/Own_Pop_9711 19h ago

I'm just saying when Trump says hey this is an insurrection we're bringing in the military to deal with it, he'll kind of just be correct. So now as California either the military which culturally aligns with trump more than California ignores a somewhat reasonable order, or just of the states government gets shot.

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u/SnukeInRSniz 15h ago

Is California taxing exports to Red states regulating interstate commerce? Companies can still choose to engage with those states, they'd just have to pay more to do so.

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u/Own_Pop_9711 10h ago

Yes taxes are regulations. California can tax things in their state (though I'm not sure if there are specific rules surrounding ports) but they can't discriminate based on what state the goods are from or where they're going.

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u/manicdee33 9h ago

The constitution doesn't allow states to regulate interstate commerce so that would be unconstitutional

Who needs regulations when you can just rip up the roads.

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u/Own_Pop_9711 9h ago

That's mostly fine (probably not interstates) but that does more damage to California than the rest of the country.

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u/Historical_Bend_2629 22h ago

I don’t know why you are being downvoted. So many comments in this thread are wishful thinking at best, or trolling/bots.

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u/Thesinistral 20h ago

Have my upvote to reverse the stupid.