Donald Trump likes to make threats about pulling federal funds from the UC college system because he doesn’t like the protests that are popping up in reaction to the fascist troll Milo Yiannopoulos who was scheduled to spew his bile at Berkeley last night.
The president delivered his ultimatum on Twitter at 3:13 a.m. Pacific time: “If U.C. Berkeley does not allow free speech and practices violence on innocent people with a different point of view — NO FEDERAL FUNDS?”
A typically eloquent missive Donald…
First lets stipulate that no one is condoning the violence and property damage that took place on the Berkeley campus. It was wrong and the people that perpetrated those foolish acts should and will be arrested and charged for what they did. It was an irrational, counterproductive act by angry, frustrated people who feel like they are not being heard or respected. Sound familiar?
That said, we should also point out the UC Berkeley college did not do those things. Berkeley is the birthplace of the free speech movement and has a well earned reputation for allowing opposing points of view to be voiced and to be heard.
What Trump does not understand (and that list is getting longer every day…) is that California doesn’t depend on funding from the federal government nearly as much as the federal government depends on funding from California.
California is a “donor state” which basically means that we contribute more to the federal government than we get back. For every dollar that we send out to the federal government we only get back around 78 cents.
California has the fifth largest economy in the world (that’s right, THE WORLD…). We fund roads and bridges and yes, schools in other states that are welfare states (meaning states that get more money from the federal government than they pay out…). Most of those states went for Trump in the 2016 election.
So if Trump wants to withhold federal funds from us, I say fine, we will keep all the money that we send to you and instead spend that money on the needs of Californians.
We will see just who funds who…