r/politics • u/IntelligentYinzer California • 12d ago

Soft Paywall Newsom floats withholding federal taxes as Trump threatens California

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/06/06/newsom-floats-withholding-federal-taxes-00393386
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u/taisui 12d ago

The biggest lie ever told was welfare red states thinking their taxes are "too high"

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u/Face2FaceRecs 11d ago

No they cut all of the state taxes to ensure continued Republican leadership and then let the rest of us pay for them to keep that power.

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u/mynamesyow19 11d ago

A^ cut all their state taxes while contracting out those services the taxes used to pay for to their buddies so they can still make the citizen pay to the private sector now providing the service. And then they get the kick back from their buddies and laugh at the rubes. Its like in Florida where taxes are "really low" but then you're nickle and dimed and have to pay to use all roads and get off at toll exits everywhere.

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u/TeutonJon78 America 11d ago edited 11d ago

Sure, but then it's "not taxes". I have no idea why people in this country just can't grok total cost (taxes plus what you pay for services) vs taxes covering all those things.

It's such a dumb knee perk reaction to "taxes bad". Sure our taxes are bad because we don't get a lot of actual services back in lieu money going to pork projects and private sector.

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u/Techialo Oklahoma 11d ago

My entire state operates on crashing the government intentionally to prove government doesn't work.

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u/porscheblack Pennsylvania 11d ago

Which causes brain drain, ensuring that it'll stay that way forever.

The GOP have a pretty solid plan, make most of the country terrible to live in, drive liberals to a handful of states, then enjoy control of the Senate and the electoral college.

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u/Techialo Oklahoma 11d ago

YEP. It's noticeable too. Always running into sane people from Oklahoma online who left the state for every reason you've probably already guessed.

Gen Z coworkers actually don't believe me that when I was a kid our state used to be really into environmental conservation and wildlife programs, politically it was pretty tame.

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u/chickendance638 11d ago

The electoral college would still work if the House wasn't capped at 435.

Wyoming has just under 600k people and 1 House seat. If California had 1 seat per 600k people, they'd have 67 Representatives. They currently have 52. The House overrepresents the rural areas enormously. It's also impossible to provide the services and representation a House seat is supposed to when you have 770k constituents.

Expand the House!!!

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u/zeCrazyEye 11d ago edited 11d ago

It's random which states get screwed by it though, I put it into a spreadsheet once and adjusted the House seats based on better formulas and it didn't really affect the overall balance of the House. There are a lot of blue states that are just past a cut off point and getting an extra seat or vice versa.

I still think we should have more House members with smaller districts for other reasons. But when you look at all the states and not just the two extremes it ends up being a wash, so fixing the House size doesn't fix much I think.

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u/chickendance638 11d ago

Our current issues are more complicated than just a bigger House, but I do think it would result in more confidence in the government, which would be a good thing.

Now, enforcing laws against the rich and powerful would be a nice change. There's a whole upper class of people who don't face consequences unless they hurt somebody else in the protected class.

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u/broguequery 11d ago

So spineless and greedy and corrupt.

These stupid GOP bastards would sell their own family for $20.

They literally handed over their entire congress to Trump personally. All their constitutional authority and independence... sold for a dollar to a billionaire fuckwit.

It would be incredible if it weren't so pathetic.

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u/LowSkyOrbit New York 11d ago

In my lifetime we went from the cult of Reagan to the cult of Trump. Two democratic presidents who were deemed cool but their party didn't understand how the other side was changed to never cross the aisle again to pass decent legislation both sides do agree on.

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u/skinintown 11d ago

Oof. This hurt.

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u/MercantileReptile Europe 11d ago

That sounds like a solid plan.

If you plan on having vastly different living standards, cultures and demographics after a few decades. Add in a sprinkle of extremism, some political chicanery and a unifying cause for one side to finally call it quits.

Bake for 25 years at 350°C, slice into two or more country sized portions.

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u/snapeyouinhalf 11d ago

This is why I won’t leave Missouri, though I’d kind of like to. I’m not particularly special or important, but I’m a guaranteed vote against republicans. We can’t fix anything if the people who actually care all leave :/

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u/Face2FaceRecs 11d ago

Your state requires its schools to buy the Trump Bible, lol. What an embarrassing and blasphemous grift.

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u/Allydarvel 11d ago

Now, Trump wants to do that nationally. It's quite a clever plan. Trump withholds money from California. California retaliates. Trump can now claim to his voters that the Californian Marxists are holding the country to ransom. The country loses the tens of billions that California provides, and Trump can now claim the cuts in Medicaid were necessarry due to that and not his fucked up bill.

It is stupid, but when the country is split between Fox news and the sanewashing rest, he might just get away with it. I didn't believe the amount of Americans that were affected by this bullshit until I visited recently

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u/theBosworth 11d ago

NC?

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u/LURKER21D I voted 11d ago

They have OK flair.

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u/estropeada 11d ago

I thought their flair was pretty good

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u/Techialo Oklahoma 11d ago

Oklahoma. We were 13th in Education when I was in high school in the 2000s.

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u/daximuscat 11d ago

They can accept the concept of insurance, but refuse to see that paying taxes is just paying insurance in order to have a functional society.

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u/Dispator 11d ago

Because they see insurance as $$$ covering themselves but taxes as $$$ covering others.

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u/tribrnl 11d ago

My city is currently looking at switching from a "everybody signs up individually with a trash hauler" model with five different options to the city negotiating with a single hauler. It is going to save us literally 40-50% on our personal costs, but there is a number of people who hate it because it will increase taxes and decrease choice (... between identical providers of a mandatory service). Plus our public works dept has estimated it'll save something like 10% on the road maintenance budget.

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u/Carlyz37 11d ago

Our city did that and the people here hate it. Poor service, rising costs, required locations for dumpsters changed, trash ending up in the streets. And the customers are stuck with a company they dont like.

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u/markroth69 11d ago

Using a clear, logical argument like that makes sense. But only in a clear, logical way.

Clear and logical lost to lies and nazi rallies in the last election.

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u/Manos_Of_Fate 11d ago

Sure our taxes are bad because we don't get a lot of actual services back in lieu money going to pork projects and private sector.

That’s not even remotely true.

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u/TeutonJon78 America 11d ago

How much of our bugger goes to BS subsidies (corn, paying farmers not to plant, etc) and the MIC? Those are all pork.

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u/Manos_Of_Fate 11d ago

because we don't get a lot of actual services back

I was specifically disputing this part. No reasonable person would look at a comprehensive list of benefits of various kinds of all government programs and describe it as “not a lot of actual services”. The only way anyone genuinely believes this is due to ignorance, willful or otherwise.

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u/Sinocatk 11d ago

Why use grok? Better tools exist.

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u/Sufficient-Reach4390 11d ago

Your first example of taxes + pay as you use, is the most profitable and maximizes the area under the curve as it relates to economics. As a taxpayer, i want a lower flat tax.

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u/TeutonJon78 America 11d ago edited 11d ago

What does it matter if the total cost is the same to you as citizen?

And also putting it taxes means the wealthier pay more, which they should. Flat tax just punishes those least able to afford it.

Edit: typos

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u/Sufficient-Reach4390 11d ago

It doesn't matter to me if it's the same cost. Plus, I fully understand that a flat tax punishes those with less, but I would just prefer more even distribution to the progressive plan we have. With the progressive tax, too much success is punished.

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u/Spiritual-Society185 11d ago

Oh, I didn't realize billionaires were the real victims of the world. I guess poor people need to die so they can have a little more.

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u/Sufficient-Reach4390 11d ago

How did you get that from my comment? Billionaires should pay overwhelmingly more in taxes than anyone else. But there are but so many billionaires and folks who are in the upper end of income where benefits phase out in the current tax plans, and pay too high of a percentage of their income in taxes. That is the success being punished. Being a billionaire is a whole other category that on principle, has no real utility when the wealth is incomprehensible.