The novel and untested approach has been introduced by Democratic lawmakers in at least four states.
Democratic legislators mostly in blue states are attempting to fight back against Donald Trump’s efforts to withhold funding from their states with bills that aim to give the federal government a taste of its own medicine.
The novel and untested approach — so far introduced in Connecticut, Maryland, New York and Wisconsin — would essentially allow states to withhold federal payments if lawmakers determine the federal government is delinquent in funding owed to them. Democrats in Washington state said they are in the process of drafting a similar measure.
These bills still have a long way to go before becoming law, and legal experts said they would face obstacles. But they mark the latest efforts by Democrats at the state level to counter what they say is a massive overreach by the Trump administration to cease providing federal funding for an array of programs that have helped states pay for health care, food assistance and environmental protections.
The states are currency users, and as such are intrinsically subservient to the currency issuer, namely the federal government.
The US federal government doesn’t need whatever money the states, or anyone else, pays it. Every cent a currency issuer receives is instantly obliterated from the economy, and conversely the origin of every cent is conjured out of thin air by their budget.
That said, the states withholding federal payments could work on the chucklefucks currently in charge, because many of them are likely to believe strongly in the fiction of zero-sum economics, but I’d hazard a critical mass hold a world view built on some other fantastical hallucination from hotboxing their collective farts.
That’s literally how it works, dunno why you’re getting downvoted
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I’ve found the most difficult concept to dislodge from the terminally disengaged is that there’s no such thing as taxpayer money at the federal level.
It’s a tremendously useful weapon for those in power to wield when they need to convince the poor to vote against their interests.