President Donald Trump is reportedly considering a freeze on federal funding to the state of California — but Gov. Gavin Newsom has hit back with a threat of his own.
"Californians pay the bills for the federal government," wrote Newsom in a post to X on Friday. "We pay over $80 BILLION more in taxes than we get back. Maybe it’s time to cut that off, @realDonaldTrump."
It's unclear exactly how California cutting off funding to the federal government would work, but likely the only way to accomplish what Newsom is suggesting is a widespread boycott of federal taxes by California residents, which would be fraught with legal complications.
This comes after CNN reported that Trump and his officials are looking into a large-scale cancelation of federal funding to California in retaliation. A spokesman for the White House said, “No taxpayer should be forced to fund the demise of our country,” and cited Trump's disagreement with a variety of California's policies on issues including energy and immigration.
But Trump, who has repeatedly butted heads with the governor of America's most populous state, may also be considering this as an escalation of his feud over California's refusal to comply with his order demanding all federally-funded school athletics programs exclude transgender athletes from their gender division, something that also led him to clash with the governor of Maine.
Studies have repeatedly shown that Democratic-voting states like California tend to produce more in taxes for the federal government than they receive back in benefits and federal spending, due both to the fact that many of these states contain some of the largest and wealthiest cities in the United States, and the fact that many Republican-voting states rely on military spending and employment.
Notable exceptions to this pattern include Maryland and Virginia, two primarily Democratic-voting states which border the nation's capital and thus are home to a number of federal agencies and employees, as well as Texas, which broadly votes for Republicans but also is home to several large and wealthy metropolitan areas.