Right before the Super Bowl aired this past Sunday, viewers tuned in to a taped interview between Donald Trump and Fox News anchor Bill O\u2019Reilly. During the interview, Trump suggested he would potentially pull federal funding from California as\u00a0retaliation for\u00a0the state\u2019s promise to protect immigrants\u2019 rights, claiming sanctuary cities \u201cbreed crime.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we have to, we\u2019ll defund,\u201d Trump told O\u2019Reilly, \u201cWe give tremendous amounts of money to California. California in many ways is out of control, as you know.\u201d In the same interview, Bill O\u2019Reilly described Putin as a killer, to which Trump replied, \u201cWe have a lot of killers, got a lot of killers. What, you think our country is so innocent?\u201d So, at least we know where Trump stands from a moral standpoint.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It should come as no surprise that Trump isn\u2019t pleased with Californians. After all, more than 60 percent of them voted for Hillary Clinton. To say the federal funding California receives is \u201cout of control,\u201d however, would be wildly inaccurate. With 38.8 million residents, California represents 12 percent of the U.S. population, but contributes 13 percent of all federal tax revenue.<\/p>\n
In stark contrast to Trump, Californians pay their fair share of taxes. In fact, California has a history of putting more money into the federal government than it gets in return. In 2005, the Tax Foundation revealed that for every dollar Californians paid in federal taxes, they got back an average of 78 cents in federal spending. Data collected by the U.S. Census and the IRS found that number had improved by 9 cents in 2010, while the most recent data collected by the\u00a0New York state comptroller found Californians received 99 cents on the dollar in 2013. Compare that to the average $1.29 most states receive for every dollar they pay in federal taxes, and you get a good sense\u00a0of the disparity.<\/p>\n
Should Trump follow through with pulling California\u2019s federal funding, he can count on the entire country feeling the consequences. On Monday, California Senate President pro Tempore Kevin de Le\u00f3n said in a statement, \u201cAny pain the president wants to cause in California will ripple nationwide,\u201d citing the state\u2019s financial contributions as extremely valuable to the country as a whole. According to the California State Legislature, \u201cMost federal payments to California are paid directly to individuals, private entities, and universities\u2014representing about 77 percent of the total,\u201d meaning taxpayers would feel the pain of budget cuts most directly. On a short-term level, California provides millions of jobs that benefit Americans from all states. Long term, Californian schools deliver groundbreaking research, making us internationally competitive. It\u2019s also worth mentioning\u00a0California leads the way when it comes to combatting climate change, a commitment we can\u2019t afford to lose as a country.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Realistically, federal courts will restrict Trump\u2019s power, preventing him from doing any real damage to the state\u2019s finances. Of the $343 billion California receives in federal funds each year, $200 billion benefits veterans, the elderly, and the poor. Trying to cut specific funds\u2014like grants for art programs and scientific research, for instance\u2014while leaving other necessary benefits intact will be difficult, to say the least, the The Sacramento Bee reports<\/em>. Trump would also have to tiptoe around the 9\u00a0percent of California\u2019s federal funds that go\u00a0toward defense contracts since he\u2019s suggested he wants to increase military spending, not curtail it. \u00a0<\/p>\n Ultimately, Californians would be wise to take Trump\u2019s threats seriously considering he\u2019s stood by his most ludicrous campaign promises so far, though that shouldn\u2019t stop sanctuary cities and counties from defending their core principles. The benefits of protecting America\u2019s most vulnerable\u00a0will far outweigh the risks of doing nothing at all.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Right before the Super Bowl aired this past Sunday, viewers tuned in to a taped interview between Donald Trump and Fox News anchor Bill O\u2019Reilly. During the interview, Trump suggested he would potentially pull federal funding from California as\u00a0retaliation for\u00a0the state\u2019s promise to protect immigrants\u2019 rights, claiming sanctuary cities \u201cbreed crime.\u201d \u201cIf we have to,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1279","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1279","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1279"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1279\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}