California Treasurer Warns Trump Faces Long Court Fight Over Funding Threats
SACRAMENTO (CBS13) — "California is in many ways out of control," said President Donald Trump during a pre Super Bowl interview with Fox News.
The president is now in a war of words with the largest state in the country over sanctuary cities.
"I'm very much opposed to sanctuary cities. They breed crime, there's a lot of problems. If we have to, we'll defund," said Trump.
There is no real definition to what a sanctuary city is, but at its core it means the city won't cooperate with federal immigration agents. In the case an undocumented person gets arrested for a crime, the local agency won't specifically hold that person for federal agents.
The threat by Trump is to take federal dollars away from California if major cities in the state continue to not cooperate with federal immigration authorities.
"Donald Trump is acting illegally; He does not have the power to pull this money and we are going to fight him until the end to protect our immigrant communities," said state Sen. Scott Weiner (D-11th)
But at what cost?
According to 2014 statistics from the IRS and Pew research, California received $355 billion dollars from the federal government.In turn, it gave the fed $369 billion dollars in tax revenue. For comparison, Texas raised the second most amount of money for the federal government - some $100 billion dollars less than California.
"There is just a little bit of reality that needs to sink in," said Doug Ose a Fmr. Congressman (CA – 3rd)
Ose says the state is in a losing battle. Trump's words could turn into congressional action, as they are the only ones who can direct federal funding.
"In the ordinary course of business, we are on the wrong path by being confrontational," warned Ose.
State Treasurer John Chiang disagrees and says the state has plenty of leverage.
"President Trump's comments are counterproductive to his stated objective of making America great again," explained Chiang.
He says California is a leader in technology, agriculture and defense; and Trump has legal hurdles in his way.
"He's going to end up in court trying to overcome the United States Constitution," said Chiang.
