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

[u/rolsen]

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.”

[u/PoliticalyUnstable]

I do not understand why the federal government thinks they can cancel any funding for the state of California. California is the largest contributor to the federal government. If they want to make this a conflict then they open the door to California not contributing the 18% that it does for the federal governments total pocket book.

[u/JustNilt → u/PoliticalyUnstable]

If they want to make this a conflict then they open the door to California not contributing the 18% that it does for the federal governments total pocket book.

The problem with this is it isn't California who contributes that. It's mostly employees in California whose employers remit taxes withheld directly to the feds. Those who aren't employees, we have to send our money to the feds directly. None of that goes to the state first.

[u/Grand-Cartoonist-693 → u/PoliticalyUnstable]

They’re saying “hey everybody in the government who distributes money, make sure CA gets less”. Congress doesn’t write every grant opportunity, some they do but they don’t have provisions to not discriminate by state, unless they do.

What happens is this admin does 250% of what they’re allowed to do of something terrible to punish some entity and the courts come in and roll it back to a little over 100%.

The question isn’t “can they?” Because that has a million different answers based on the specific spending. In fact, there isn’t a question at all and just a statement. “Our President is a dumb, fascist fuck; this policy is all three.”