Trump threatens to cut funds if ‘communist’ Mamdani wins mayoral election
President backs Cuomo in election eve Truth Social post as Mamdani hits back at Trump’s ‘threat – it is not the law’
On the eve of New York’s well-watched mayoral election, Donald Trump issued a threat to its voters: stop Zohran Mamdani or pay.
“If Communist Candidate Zohran Mamdani wins the Election for Mayor of New York City, it is highly unlikely that I will be contributing Federal Funds, other than the very minimum as required, to my beloved first home,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social. “I don’t want to send, as President, good money after bad.”
Trump’s comments echo those broadcast on Sunday during his appearance on CBS’s 60 minutes, in which he said: “It’s gonna be hard for me as the president to give a lot of money to New York, because if you have a communist running New York, all you’re doing is wasting the money you’re sending there.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/nov/03/trump-mamdani-new-york-election-mayor-cuomoOpen linkView original on lemmy.world
I'd love to see NYC set up a voluntary escrow account for federal taxes.
You don't have to pay shit till taxes are due, have NYC sit on their withholdings and trump won't be able to build any ballrooms.
The problem is employers take taxes directly out of paychecks and send directly to the federal government.
Pretty sure they don't have to, you can opt out and pay the full bill come tax day. That would certainly put sand in the gears.
You have to pay quarterly if your withholding doesn't match you tax burdon. That's oversimplified but in general you cannot wait till tax day or else everyone would. You would just self withhold, leave the cash in a safe money market fund and make 4% on it till tax day.
Who cares? Do it anyway. The law doesn't fucking matter any more.
It does for us plebs.
An in-group that the law protects but does not bind, and an out-group that the law binds but does not protect.
Illegal if a few thousand people do it, but defacto legal if a few million people do it.
We need a 2025 word for illegal things getting a pass due to systemic chaos in the same way we had truthyness in the early 2000s. I propose "derelegal" to mean technically illegal but unenforced due to systemic chaos or legal rot.
Anarchy?
AND difference exceeds the $1500 quarterly buffer. That is, you only owe penalties if your withholding is more-than-a-little off in your favor.
I mention that because it’s an important detail for a useful tip re: filling w-4s. Since the withholding percentage is just an estimate based on that form, including the number of allowances you specify, it’s usually a good idea to “tune” that number to prevent over-withholding and, preferably, err somewhat in your favor.
It’s better to owe taxes on your return. If the IRS owes you, it means you inadvertently gave them an interest-free loan last year.
On second thought. Pretty sure you need to withhold too, otherwise you just do the same thing per quarter. If someone knows, please let me know so I can turn off withholding lol
....
Those are called "withholdings" and you pick what they are on your W4...
And honestly everyone should know that, literally every legal job in America you fill out a W4...
Good thing it is legal for Trump and only Trump to meddle in elections. Yay.
This seems the require a better descriptor. Extorting an election.
Other states should protest by withholding taxes, as well. United, yes?
That's not really how it works - there's no one big sack of cash that gets handed over by the state, individual businesses (and people) pay their taxes to the IRS directly, and then separately to the state tax agencies (obvs leaving out some of the draconian nuance here). States don't have a practical method of withholding taxes short of going to every business and demanding they stop paying the feds. While hypothetically possible at some point, it's not in the short term feasible.
In comparison to all federal taxes payed out by people within a state, that's a pretty miniscule sack of cash. The government is among the largest employers in every state true, but their payroll contributions aren't anything compared to the whole and they're paltry compared to things like business-derived tax revenue. States could withhold them, yes, but it wouldn't do much if they did.
It's not nothing, but it's really just not very much in context. Together those make up around the same amount trump is causally refusing to release from the SNAP emergency funds (~$33 billion) and that shortfall is being mitigated. Not trivially, it would be awesome to have that cash and people will feel it, but cutting those funds off for a full year would result in something like two weeks of reduced SNAP benefits or a couple days of federal furlough.
Alright, the scope of this discussion is creeping pretty drastically. There's still no one big sack of cash, and while yes california could save some money by not paying out their payroll taxes (btw where did you find the state payroll amount? I've been looking around and can't find it reported anywhere) it's still not very much money, especially as they would then be required to cover that portion of the budget that was once covered by the federal government ($600 Billion) who doubtlessly would stop funding California in response to blatant secession...
I disagree. I think having everyone send their federal taxes to a state entity for leverage purposes would be an interesting development. The individual is protected, and the state holds the bag.
How would the individual be protected from the IRS if they are penalized by the IRS for non-payment of taxes. Just because you sent a check to some state entity doesn’t mean those federal taxes have been paid, and that state entity likely wouldn’t have the authority or resources to protect you from the IRS.
It would be kind of like sending your mortgage payment to your lawyer when you have a dispute with your bank. You still owe that money to the bank, and they can take action for non-payment.
Some jurisdictions allow escrow payment when in a legal conflict, in which case you actually might be sending money to your lawyer instead
... Probably doesn't apply for US taxes, but it's a thing
Damn, looks like Trump shouldn't have slasher the IRS budget and fired all their auditors.
Well, kinda. But in this example, you've put the money in escrow, which gives you protection while everything plays out in court
But you as an individual won’t be suing the IRS so escrow makes no sense in this case.
Yes, but you've also separated the money and put it under the care of a third party. And presumably, you'd do this as a matter of state law
When the IRS comes knocking, you can say "sure thing, your money is over there, as according to local laws". The IRS can then sue you, but you followed the law and set the money aside - clearly you weren't attempting to avoid paying
Which realistically means the federal government needs to sue the state, either to overturn the state law or collect all the money
I'm confused, sorry: what are you disagreeing with?
That seems like a trivial position to take.
Tbh one of my main takeaways from this presidency is that states send too much money to the federal gov and have to ask for it back. It feels like having more local control of how these dollars are spent would maybe even be bi partisan.
It is not bipartisan. The countries that take more than they send (primarily Republican states, I'm led to believe) would absolutely refuse.
In the past our federal government has always been more competent and less corrupt at the federal level than the state level. That only changed this year.
Can't hurt to ask nicely.
They don't seem to need justification
Agreed, but GQP gaslights this general idea all the time at Fed level.
“Let’s leave abortion up to the states…” as they come up with a plan to do the exact opposite and parrot the same lies over and over again.
How the fuck...
When the ever loving fuck are people going to wake up and remember their government/civics lessons??
Those teach how things are supposed to work, not what to do when things don't work as they should. I'm willing to wager no government willingly teaches people how to coerce it into working for them, but at least America definitely doesn't.
Which is incredibly ironic for a country founded by terrorists (from the British perspective) who engaged in exactly that coercion.
I really can’t think of higher praise.
I may be wrong, but isn't NYC more of a money generator than it's a receiver? If that's so, I don't see how NYC would suffer, but it would widen the divide between such areas and poor dotational ones, making their people possible maga recruits.
Most blue areas produce money, most red areas (excluding Texas I think) are leeches.
T*xas very much does too, despite how much they like to act big and bad and independent.
I don't know what T*xas is. Is that like Voldemort?
I man they do generate a lot more money than most red states. Being able to admit that doesn't detract anything from the overall point.
Yeah but we're talking about net here. Most blue states are net producers, most red states are net leechers. Texas might not be as big of a leech as some others, but it's still a leech.
Texas would be but they reject some federal funds they'd be entitled to.
YeeHaw exports look especially bad right now.
Florida and Texas are the two notable red states that aren't mostly empty.
i think people are still expected to pay federal taxes. even if trump blocked funds.
Like King George did? How did that work out?
I'm not sure how all the recent tax changes will effect this either.
Hilarious watching these idiots call literally everything they don't like "communism".
Communist, socialist, anarchist, antifa, woke, leftist. Which ones am I missing that ain’t slurs?
Radical!
It's their catch all term for any policy that helps average Americans. After all, licking billionaire's butts is just too irrestible for these class traitors.
McCarthy never died. He just took a nap.
Communism, pedophiles, terrorists. Take your pick.
lol NY doesn’t need “his” funds. Trump needs NY funds though.
The billionaires don’t want you to know this but you pay taxes to the states your business is located in. You don’t just “leave” because taxes. The businesses these billionaires own in New York are still subject to taxes.
What’s crazy is the right has “donated” more money to supporting cuomo than Mamdani would have even taxed them.
Businesses already set up headquarters in Delaware for tax reasons. They're not going to leave New York City, one of biggest markets on Earth. This argument from conservatives was always stupid.
My Trump-addled father is now declaring that Wall St is going to relocate to Texas because of Mamdani's victory. 😐
Cool so the stock market will collapse when their power goes out and the servers go out!
Yeah but there is no quid pro quo with Mamdani. As far as I know...
At this point there's little reason for blue states to remain. The US federal government is too far gone to fix and the kinds of ass wipe Democrats who would get elected certainly are going to do anything like expanding the Supreme Court or her tailing the power of the president so we might as well start from scratch
As somebody originally from New York State, I firmly believe that we could render the Federal government irrelevant simply through economic means alone
Actually, given how America works the only thing that would be necessary to completely destroy the federal government would be to have 40 senators, easily achievable, refuse to pass a budget. As we've seen without a budget everything grinds to a halt and eventually the federal workers are going to leave for other jobs. This might have already happened by sharing competence and the need to suppress the Epstein files but you could do it intentionally if you so desired
If Biden had an ounce of guts he would have started a shadow court with ethics rules and ignored the subprime court when it was clear they were off the rails.
The authority of the Supreme Court itself for judicial review is based on precedent 🤷♂️
Blexit
I think food and having belligerent neighbors might be a problem.
1: who do you think is buying the flyover crops
2: blue states grow plenty of crops, the largest agricultural producer is California
https://www.farmprogress.com/management/what-us-states-produce-the-most-food-ranking-1-50-
California is really interesting actually. Yes over all they are a blue state. But the blue comes from exactly where you think it does. The metropolitan centers of the state are where the majority of people live. But the majority of agriculture comes from the valleys where people are much more right leaning. California is so politically diverse that there is regular infighting about breaking up into multiple states. One really commonly petitioned and proposed split is the creation of the State of Jefferson.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jefferson_(proposed_Pacific_state)
But also, Northern California and Southern California regularly are seen as in opposition to each other. Central California feels completely different than any of the aforementioned regions. Then there is the desert area.
The real reason it could stand on its own as a country is because of that diversity. Not to mention, if California split from the Union, in theory, the USA would have to continue to import goods from them because of how reliant we are as a country on that singular region.
Trump has a lot of property in New York.
Sure would be a shame if he finally saw some consequences and lost a few dozen of them.
Does the cityhave the right to seize property or is that the state that would have that authority? I suspect it's at the state level.
I'm not sure why you think that.
Eminent Domain works just fine for both cities & states.
Because this isn’t eminent domain. They wouldn’t be taking Trump Plaza to widen the street. This is Albany’s job.
Are you telling me that you honestly believe that the City of New York (via the state of New York) can't use eminent domain to turn that plaza into a park, school or subway station.
Because they absolutely can.
Yes, last I looked they don’t have the right to seize property on that scale.
Uh huh. Meanwhile, back in reality, New York City is currently demoing an entire neighborhood for part of a subway line.
Which was done under the MTA. The MTA is a NY State organization not an NYC one. Again this is all the role of Albany.
sure why not.
Go ahead TACO.
Idk man, I see a lot of red caps at a certain party's rallies
red = obvious communist symbolism
I think those caps even say "make america great again" which obviously sounds like a communist slogan
I'd say we arrest these filthy communists 😏
I've always been amused by the fact that "gung ho" (which in Mandarin means "pull together", as in pulling on a rope in unison) started out as a slogan of the Chinese Communist Party under Mao and then migrated to the US during WWII because of an openly-communist Marine. Its real meaning is more like "be a team player" but it was somehow transformed into "eagerly shoot brown people".
Also, the Marines' "ooh rah" chant sounds exactly like the Soviet Red Army's chant. More weird shit.
I'm a native Mandarin speaker and I'm so confused what ur talking about lolz.
You mean like 共和? "together in unison/harmony" aka: "republicanism"?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gung_ho
The wikipedia article doesn't mention the "pull together" (as in rope pulling) interpretation. That was from a book about Mao that I read a long time ago, I can't remember what it was. The book had a bit about Evans Carlson traveling with Mao's army and meeting him. I am certainly not a Chinese speaker so I'm happy to have my inaccuracies corrected.
Sounds like a borrowed term from a random word converted into English. I wasn't aware there were any nationwide propaganda slogan related to it, looks like just some random slogan from a state-owned organization.
The second act begins.
So that would mean that New York could stop paying federal taxes, no? I'm sure it contributes more than it receives
I always find it hilarious how red states and their leaders are all about cutting off funds to the blue states that fund their miserable existence. "We will secede from the US!" Ok Boomer, good luck with funding yourself as all of you are so mismanaged that you would fail to feed your own population within the year.
Well, It did hit Scott Adams, so that's something.
What if trump is actually a secret good person and is aware of his meirdas touch and is actually trying to make the world a better place by attacking the people trying to make it better, therefore assuring their victory.
I mean he obviously isn't, but it's a nice thought.
Doing it this way would make him the dumbest person imaginable, though. We already know there is evil in the world, championing it does nothing but feed it.
This is impeachable ... par fot the course with Trump and MAGA. So sick of injustice.
how many times do you think any other president would have been successfully impeached for trump's roll of crime? 50? 100 times?
to me, the confidential docs debacle and j6 are the worst of the worst; the docs one stings especially because I know what it takes to obtain and maintain a security clearance and wonder how much he put at risk - both human assets and strategic plans - in his fucking bathroom - knowing that similar behavior in the military would get you a nice stretch at leavenworth federal correctional facility and you might see freedom in a few decades. maybe.
dems should enumerate the list and use it any time someone talks about presidential fitness. "Oh you're worried about a woman president, but this fuck did treason after treason and that's fine?"
For what the world understood you impeached a president because he lied about receiving head, I guess the two parties are indeed different.
You have nothing to lose but your chains.
China and Cuba, that's the only places they ever mention if they do.
No way, he'd way over estimate
Sweden The UK Venezuela Colombia New Zealand France Etc
Iran/DPRK
Your move, orange boy.
I wanna see Mam win!!
He won
I'm sure it's perfectly legal to interfere with a free and fair election.
Yeah, I guess that's how fascism happens.
The time to speak up is now. The place to do it is everywhere.
doesn't NY already pay more than it's ever received? Guess it's time to reserve some for the home team
Yeah wtf. These are not just "funds". They are taxes. Payed by the people. The one who voted.
Communism vs the dictator l
it's interesting to see how the lemmy users handle this communist lib vs trump being a friend of China and Russia alignment
Well first of all, Mamdani isn't communist. He's more in line with a democratic socialist.
Second, Russia isn't communist, they're fascist. China is very mich a capitalist country, which means they can not be communist. I don't know exactly what they are, but they're definately authoritarian, something Mamdani isn't at all.
Yes. There are parts of Lemmy declaring the likes of Mamdani as libs and fascist nations as the true communists
Well sure, but just as I don't take the political opinions of the drunk guy on the train seriously, I don't consider theirs of value.
Of course. Not valuable, only interesting
Communism is a failure that we cannot allow to prosper!
Capitalism is also a failure. Choose one.
Mamdani is not a communist, but a socialist. There's a difference, and even though you can apparently be the President without knowing that, it's worth being clear about it.
I'm fairly certain Gates9 just forgot the /s.
If people can’t recognize obvious sarcasm, that’s their problem.
its hard to tell nowadays.
I think it's everyone's problem that the world is too awful for sarcasm to be obvious.
True. I absolutely loathe "/s". Fuck that noise.
Or, and hear me out: you post things you think are funny and ignore the dumbass vote brigades run by bots and morons. You don't need an award trophy for writing words into a forum.
Then you don't need/s
A good shitpost is its own reward
do you think the whole internet is just bots and your the only human?
No but I do think you worked extra hard to find an annoying response that has zero to do with anything I actually said.
then why even make that comment? your ragebaitng for no good reason, you have to face reality and realize not everyone has the same collective thoughts. echo chambers are not healthy.
Yes of the two of us, I am clearly the one ragebaiting.
Come on man, at least be creative.
ok
he's a socialist.
(the comment implies that communism/socialism is fully capable of prosperity and capitalists do what they always do, attack before an alternative proves itself)