During last fall’s government shutdown, the Trump administration started cutting energy grants to states, but the only states that were seriously affected were ones Donald Trump lost in the 2024 election. At the time, officials in the affected states accused the White House of “mafioso tactics” and brazenly abusing its powers by politicizing grant decisions that are supposed to be based on merit.
Team Trump was initially dismissive of the claims. Russell Vought, the White House budget director who terminated hundreds of grants, insisted that he was simply paring back Biden-era federal grants that the White House considered wasteful because as Vought put it, they were part of a “Green New Scam” — whatever that was supposed to mean.
It wasn’t long, however, before that posture started evolving.
In December, for example, the Republican administration’s lawyers made no real effort to deny the underlying allegations, instead arguing in a court filing that it’s “constitutionally permissible” to consider partisan politics when distributing (or canceling) federal funds.
This week, Team Trump gave up the game, effectively admitting in a legal filing that the “mafioso tactics” claims were correct all along.
Can blue states stop paying taxes because the president they voted for didn’t get into office?
Unless a state were to somehow set up an escrow account, somehow forced all businesses to pay into it instead of direct to the IRS, and didn’t get tossed out by the courts, no.
The IRS would just fine everyone in the state. It’s just not feasible, unfortunately.
States don’t pay federal tax, people do.
States also don’t vote, this is collective punishment that affects Trump voters. I guess they’ll probably cheer for it all the same
scrapped grants to blue states who didn’t vote for Trump
It doesn’t affect the red states that put Trump into office, not in this specific case. While true that the states themselves do not vote, the electoral college is ultimately who puts presidents into office, and those electors are appointed by the state. In 48 of the 50 states, state laws mandate that the winner of the plurality of the statewide popular vote receives all of that state’s electoral votes.
This is trump punishing those who did not vote for him, it’s hard to argue otherwise.
Trump voters live in the same state as Biden voters. If you collectively punish everyone who lives in a state that voted 55% Biden, 45% of the people you are punishing are Trump voters, because states don’t vote.
Also: how does an article discuss Vought and not mention that he’s the architect of Project 2025, and of course that is why the lying sack of shit was lying?
Vought is an infuriating dickhead. It doesn’t help at all that the little worm always has such a smug look on his face.
