Beyond Congress: How the Blue States Can Lead the Trump Resistance
Supercharge state attorneys general. Democratic A.G.s are already fighting and winning in court to stop or slow down some of the most draconian actions by the Trump administration. But this represents a massive new line of work that could extend into any number of policy areas, and blue states should be providing their attorneys general with significant new resources to litigate on every front.
Wage fiscal warfare. Perhaps the most existentially challenging assault that blue states will face will be financial. This may come in the form of straightforward federal funding cuts or more pernicious political gambits where state officials are told to bend the knee on policy issues in order to hold onto federal cash. Bending the knee, of course, is not a smart long-term strategy when responding to the accelerating creep of fascism. Blue states must figure out how to fight back, including developing mechanisms to replace federal funds without the kinds of tax increases that drive people from one state to another.
One obvious way: increasing corporate income taxes that are tied to in-state sales rather than a company’s physical presence. Increases could be structured to go into effect if and when states are hit by federal funding cuts. This would have the added benefit of putting direct pressure on some of the billionaires whose support, or at least acquiescence, Trump depends on. Another, more nuclear, option being proposed in Maryland and New York would withhold state payments to the federal government when Trump refuses to disburse funds owed to the state in contravention of a court decision. This is not a distant hypothetical. Less than two weeks after Trump took office, a federal court issued a restraining order against his administration’s massive funding freeze, and a week after that, the judge in the case said that the administration was ignoring his order as states still couldn’t access funds they were due for infrastructure projects.