Donald Trump is playing favorites at a major cost.
Whether or not a state receives federal disaster aid under the Trump administration appears to boil down to their vote in the 2024 presidential election.
Donald Trump unlocked Federal Emergency Management Agency aid for several states this week, including Alaska, Nebraska, and North Dakota, but he denied it to others seemingly along party lines.
In multiple posts to Truth Social over the course of the week announcing the aid, Trump boasted that he had “won BIG” in Alaska and was honored to extend federal financial assistance to the “incredible Patriots” of Missouri.
Meanwhile, three states that recently voted blue received nothing: Vermont, Illinois, and Maryland.
Trump pledged $25 million to Alaska to deal with the aftermath of Typhoon Halong, which ravaged the state’s western coast, displaced some 2,000 residents, and killed at least one person. Severe flooding in the wake of the storm lifted houses off their foundations and obliterated some coastal villages.
“It is my Honor to deliver for the Great State of Alaska, which I won BIG in 2016, 2020, and 2024—ALASKA, I WILL NEVER LET YOU DOWN!” Trump wrote on Truth Social Tuesday.
North Dakota and Nebraska received aid approval to deal with fallout from multiple storms and tornadoes in August. Trump said Thursday he granted North Dakota $3 million, emphasizing on social media that he “won THREE times in 2016, 2020, and 2024.”
Trump also granted FEMA aid to the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe in Minnesota, which is still dealing with thousands of felled trees on tribal lands from a June storm, reported the Associated Press.
The president denied four requests for federal disaster relief. That included Maryland’s appeal for reconsideration to deal with massive flooding that affected the state’s western region in May, despite damages that nearly tripled the qualifying threshold for assistance.
In a statement, Maryland Governor Wes Moore said that Trump’s denial was “deeply frustrating,” leaving residents to deal with the wreckage on their own.
“President Trump and his Administration have politicized disaster relief, and our communities are the ones who will pay the price,” said Moore.
Vermont officials similarly underscored that damages caused by July storms far exceeded what locals could afford to fix on their own.
“It’s well over the annual budget or two years’ budget (of some towns), to fix those roads,” Eric Forand, Vermont’s emergency management director, told the Associated Press.
Sooooo that goes both way, right? Blue states can stop paying fed taxes, right?
They should. Money is the only language these assholes speak
Every single blue state has to stop paying if they aren’t getting what they are supposed to. No more subsidies for the red states, let them sort out their own shit for once. We didn’t vote for a dictator so we shouldn’t have one.
I mean, due to Republicans, there is currently a district of 800,000 people being taxed without representation.
Sooooo that goes both way, right?
Republicans get to be vindictive because they believe they’ve got nothing to lose. They don’t see blue states as winnable and they don’t believe they need those votes to run the country. They focus power within the executive branch and secure the courts in order to rubber stamp unitary executive authority.
Democrats have to be servile because they believe they can’t win without red-state support. They consistently insist that states like Texas and Florida are within their reach if they just move a little farther rightward. And they believe they need the support from these states in order to secure the power to govern nationally. They focus on securing legislative majorities because they believe they need 60 votes in the Senate and a surplus of Democrats in the House in order to affect any kind of policy reforms.
Blue states can stop paying fed taxes, right?
Taxes are collected at the point of individual employment and business transaction. My employer sends a chunk of my paycheck directly to the IRS. My company pays business taxes directly to the US Treasury. None of it passes through any state or local agency. And state/local agencies have no authority over the federal collections process.
Blue states do host a variety of federal assets and employees. So, you could see a state government try and pull a Ft. Sumtner - effectively threatening to evict federal employees and claim federal property as their own - because they don’t like federal policy. But the last time states tried that it ended very badly for them.
Literal treason.
Blue states are in an abusive relationship with the federal government. Welfare red states are taking our money and are not only giving us nothing in return, but advocating for the loss of our rights and liberties.
We are living through an actual traitorous president and traitorous party backing him. That is the historical moment we exist in. I guess the question is, what are we going to do about it?
Red states are openly hostile and encouraging the president to threaten, abuse and neglect blue states and Democrats everywhere, including ways that intentionally threaten their lives. They aren’t just giving nothing, they are taking everything.
Straight out of the playbook, they’re in it together
It’s a concerted effort, a full-on conspiracy against the United States
Violence.
You first. I recommend starting out by posting your intentions on social media.
We should all be intending such. We should all be posting it. Every single American. These people should live in fear of us daily.
The blue states should start a common disaster relief fund, and cut the part they’d would pay to the fed to finance it.
I’m so fucking sick of him. It’s not even been a year, he has wreaked so much havoc…
Well, it’s about to get worse - way worse.
Oh I know, I’m worried about the spill over reaching into my country. Fascists need their Lebensraum
I’d say it’s about to get more retarded.
Well don’t.
It’s going to get way more retarded.
I’m hoping he thinks he has to get all of this done before midterms because he knows it’s all downhill from there
They’re not sure their use of ICE and the military for voter suppression during the midterms will work
I mean, I hope I am wrong, but I don’t think elections will have any validity going forward
See yesterday’s Economist interview with Bannon . He literally says Trump will serve a 3rd term, and that his definition of “winning” is that MAGA control all institutions in the country, permanently.
I know that sounds hyperbolic but it’s pretty much a direct quote
They just assume they will be unoppused forever. You can only repress and torment good people before they snap. The pendulum is going to swing hard the other way soon.
Oh I know, trump said you won’t have to vote anymore too. I know it’s their goal, but maybe there is a Itty bitty tiny chance that the fascists get fucked
I love that my state’s tax dollars are funding the disaster relief for states that contribute nothing to the rest of us, and not my own.
They should set up blue state escrow accounts and start diverting income taxes into them like that one article I was reading.
That’s what I was thinking. Blue states should get something before their state supreme courts clarifying that they believe the states can require all income tax payments to flow through them. When the US SC says no that’s not how it works the state SC should just put their fingers in their ears and say “nah na na, nah, we can’t hear you”.
I mean that would totally collapse the US dollar… But it would be fascinating and probably the correct course of action
Hoping he gets back to the golfing soon, wishing him a big stroke
So? What is happening there?
Idk either. We need context
example 74724773 on why you shouldn’t ever place any trust in the empty values of scum on “the right”
red states are broke because they are full of dipshits with an IQ of 70. Blue states can decide to just withold funds.
The Un
itedStates of AmericaAlso the states that get relief will make sure that any blue cities don’t benefit, again.
That ought to teach them! Next time they better vote correctly otherwise there won’t be any money for you…
/s
I wonder if the political situation at the national level could be improved by reversing the long trend of increasing federal power. Reduce federal spending, reduce federal taxes, and let states manage their own policies on both economic and social issues to the greatest extent that is reasonably possible. They can handle disaster relief using the money that would go to state taxes instead of federal taxes. Many of the battles being fought on the national level now would simply go away. There will still be people unhappy with their state’s policies, but moving to another state is a lot easier than moving to another country.
(It won’t happen.)
reduce federal taxes
It’d probably be disdavantageous to Republican voters, ironically.
From 2020:
This time, Biden’s winning base in 509 counties encompasses fully 71% of America’s economic activity, while Trump’s losing base of 2,547 counties represents just 29% of the economy.
I’m not American but I see this as the only tenable way out of this mess. The percentage of brain rot is simply too high for the country to function as a unified federal state, and needs to go back to what you’ve described (which was basically the idea of the US at the outset, or also a bit like Brazil or the EU of today)
How much power the federal government can wield has been a debate since the founding. The first two political parties were the Federalists and Democratic-Republicans. The optimal version is probably somewhere in between, with lots of checks and balances that can vary through situations and time. We had some of that too through history.
It’s always hardest to see the best direction to take when in the middle of historical change, but it does seem we’ve slid a bit too far at this point to use the system that is broken to fix the system. I’m wondering not only what path we’re going to take to get to the next stage, but how the world is going to act while we do it, given how tangled the US with everything. Some might say to let it burn, ignore it, play isolationism, but that approach never worked out historically, nor did trying to step in and “fix” things.
Reduce federal spending, reduce federal taxes, and let states manage their own policies
This would require states to pick up their own slack. And even the bluest of blue states seem loathe to inherit the responsibilities of the federal government. California doesn’t want to implement its own national health system. Vermont doesn’t want to implement Single Payer. Massachusetts doesn’t want to make state universities free of charge. Colorado and Virginia don’t want to cut their policing budgets or implement public housing and jobs programs. Washington State won’t match its minimum wage to the state cost of living.
All of these governments are run by corporate oligarchs. Some of them wear a liberal veneer, financing parades for the wealthiest members of the LGBTQ community or issuing land acknowledgements for the destitute native populations sequestered on their reservations. But actual socialist policies - publicly owned utilities, publicly owned and distributed agriculture products, fully democratic school boards, free-at-point-of-service mass transit - are vanishingly rare in practice.
There will still be people unhappy with their state’s policies, but moving to another state is a lot easier than moving to another country.
The biggest draw to a given state is employment with wages in excess of cost of living. Texas continues to bring in lots of people abroad because the O&G industry pays very well and the cost of living is comparatively cheap. People are fleeing NYC in droves largely because the cost of living exceeds even the unusually high local wages. Meanwhile, West Virginia is emptying out with the death of the coal industry while Utah balloons its population with California retires and Silicon Valley tax dodgers.
State policies that fixate on economic growth do far more to drive migration than any kind of social policy, because you can’t eat social policy. If Florida has transgender people drawn and quartered, but their real estate market and entertainment districts can land 20-year-olds into the six-figure income range, more people will continue to move there. If New Hampshire launches a full blown secession movement from the tyrannical Trump Regime, but its townships keep getting overrun by bears, you’re not going to see an influx of new residents.
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