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Figs | 4 months ago

If this continues for much longer, local/state governments can, should, and eventually will commandeer the taxes that currently go to the federal government. There is no point in paying federal tax if the federal government is no longer functional. States are already trying to step up with emergency declarations to enable financial support to work around SNAP being unfunded; passing state laws to redirect useless federal taxes to fund state food programs in order to prevent the alternative of immediate violent revolution as millions of people go hungry is an obvious course of action when they exhaust that capacity...

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pickledish|4 months ago

Sadly I don't think it works this way, at least IIUC -- the state can't withhold taxes from the federal government, because those taxes (from biweekly paychecks anyway) don't go through the states -- they go directly to the federal government. Some states are trying to pass laws to still make headway in this area, for reasons like you suggest, for example NY:

https://www.cityandstateny.com/policy/2025/10/state-lawmaker...

(it's a really interesting situation since I think I read somewhere that the reason federal income taxes are directly remitted to the federal government today, is specifically to disallow this kind of state retaliation)

bee_rider|4 months ago

Although, Republicans would ostensibly like to shrink the size of the government and Democrats would probably at this point prefer their money to go to an entity that will actually provide services. So I don’t really see why there isn’t a broad consensus for implementing this idea.

svnt|4 months ago

And this will work much better in most blue states than most red states, which are more dependent on federal funds. Which means the likely response is the federal government will begin funding what were formerly federal programs in select states.

danaris|4 months ago

I'm sorry, can you clarify that last part?

The federal government will begin funding what were formerly federal programs...?

collingreen|4 months ago

Is the Air Force still being paid? We've seen a complete willingness to have the military turned against the people and the tech gap between us citizens and the fully equipped military is staggering. A couple drone swarms and even hungry folks will have to take permanent cover and that's just the stuff declassified. It's an interesting time where a very small number of folks can effectively hold off the entire citizenry for long enough that the "millions of people go hungry" problem solves itself. Pick which regions get food first and you wont even have to bother with things like gerrymandering anymore.