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.”

    • LanguageIsCool@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      This is what’s happening. We all get riled up saying NY contributes more to the federal government than it receives so Trump needs NY more than it needs Trump. Which may be true, but the reality is that Trump is trying to dissuade voters.

    • Warl0k3@lemmy.world
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      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.

      • witten@lemmy.world
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        There is a big sack of cash that gets handed over by the state: the federal payroll taxes for all the state government employees.

        • Warl0k3@lemmy.world
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          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.

          • witten@lemmy.world
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            I’m not comparing to the whole. I’m comparing to states sitting on their hands and doing nothing in the face of a rogue government in D.C. that’s pulling shit like withholding disaster relief to blue states.

            Federal payroll taxes for California state government workers, just using the portion that the employer pays, total ~$22 billion a year. And let’s say there’s another ~$15 billion for New York. Now imagine every blue state withholds theirs. Seems like a good chunk of change.

            • Warl0k3@lemmy.world
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              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.

              • witten@lemmy.world
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                29 days ago

                You’re thinking of this from the perspective of the federal government. But also think about it from the perspective of the states. For instance, the amount that California could withhold is equal to like 10% of their yearly budget. That could pay for so many of their government programs that actually benefit people in their state. And in so doing it would make them that much less dependent on the whims of the Trump regime.

                • Warl0k3@lemmy.world
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                  29 days ago

                  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…

      • RubberElectrons@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        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.

        • IphtashuFitz@lemmy.world
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          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.

          • Natanael@infosec.pub
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            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

    • ameancow@lemmy.world
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      Aside from it not really working that way, that’s what they want, they want states to start acting against the union. They are intentionally stressing the constitution and governmental system so they can then use that backlash as the justification to discard more of the constitution.

      It’s a bully teasing and poking and pulling your hair and being annoying until you finally swing at them, then they use that as the excuse to beat the shit out of you. It’s aggression and hate and malice being implemented as political strategy.

      • santa@sh.itjust.works
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        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.

  • Donjuanme@lemmy.world
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    How the fuck…

    When the ever loving fuck are people going to wake up and remember their government/civics lessons??

  • altkey (he\him)@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    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.

    • ameancow@lemmy.world
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      There is still a system in place where states contribute their federal taxes before that revenue is used for whatever we have budgeted. A state doesn’t take “their share” first, and states depend on federal funding for a lot of projects and services.

      That said, a state with large surpluses can probably write policies to use their state taxes to pay for federal programs that people want to keep, but that’s a snarled-up and anti-american system, the taxes are supposed to be used for the people, not be used like a cudgel to enforce political partisanship. There would be a lot of courts who would challenge this, which still might go in Trump’s favor because of his corruption of the judicial branch, but that’s a LOT of work and expense for something that isn’t going to actually get the administration anything but ire from the citizens of one of the country’s world’s largest, most prominent cities.

      Largely, this is as usual, a massive pile of bullshit meant to fit into a right-wing news site’s headline ticker, because people largely don’t read stories, they just read headlines and don’t question it. This kind of rhetoric has always been about making his most powerful asset, his ludicrously stupid and armed and fanatical base feel like he’s still big strong daddy choking everyone.

  • Pacattack57@lemmy.world
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    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.

    • MiddleAgesModem@lemmy.world
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      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.

  • Fluffy Kitty Cat@slrpnk.net
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    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

    • rockettaco37@feddit.nu
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      As somebody originally from New York State, I firmly believe that we could render the Federal government irrelevant simply through economic means alone

      • Fluffy Kitty Cat@slrpnk.net
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        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

    • resipsaloquitur@lemmy.world
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      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.

  • Jaysyn@lemmy.world
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    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.

    • ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world
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      sounds like a communist slogan

      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.

  • Wilco@lemmy.zip
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    This is impeachable … par fot the course with Trump and MAGA. So sick of injustice.

    • mojofrododojo@lemmy.world
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      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?”

      • Azhad@lemmy.world
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        For what the world understood you impeached a president because he lied about receiving head, I guess the two parties are indeed different.

  • DeICEAmerica@lemmy.world
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    Whenever these fucks try and paint Americans as terrorists and threaten to cut off anything they create monsters they can’t control. Anyone he attacks becomes wildly popular and almost assures them victory. Especially if he has his thugs come rough them up.

    Fuck you cancer. You take far too many good people while skipping this piece of shit.

    • YiddishMcSquidish@lemmy.today
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      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.

      • Soup@lemmy.world
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        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.