Donald Trump is playing favorites at a major cost.
Whether or not a state receives federal disaster aid under the Trump administration appears to boil down to their vote in the 2024 presidential election.
Donald Trump unlocked Federal Emergency Management Agency aid for several states this week, including Alaska, Nebraska, and North Dakota, but he denied it to others seemingly along party lines.
In multiple posts to Truth Social over the course of the week announcing the aid, Trump boasted that he had “won BIG” in Alaska and was honored to extend federal financial assistance to the “incredible Patriots” of Missouri.
Meanwhile, three states that recently voted blue received nothing: Vermont, Illinois, and Maryland.
Trump pledged $25 million to Alaska to deal with the aftermath of Typhoon Halong, which ravaged the state’s western coast, displaced some 2,000 residents, and killed at least one person. Severe flooding in the wake of the storm lifted houses off their foundations and obliterated some coastal villages.
“It is my Honor to deliver for the Great State of Alaska, which I won BIG in 2016, 2020, and 2024—ALASKA, I WILL NEVER LET YOU DOWN!” Trump wrote on Truth Social Tuesday.
North Dakota and Nebraska received aid approval to deal with fallout from multiple storms and tornadoes in August. Trump said Thursday he granted North Dakota $3 million, emphasizing on social media that he “won THREE times in 2016, 2020, and 2024.”
Trump also granted FEMA aid to the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe in Minnesota, which is still dealing with thousands of felled trees on tribal lands from a June storm, reported the Associated Press.
The president denied four requests for federal disaster relief. That included Maryland’s appeal for reconsideration to deal with massive flooding that affected the state’s western region in May, despite damages that nearly tripled the qualifying threshold for assistance.
In a statement, Maryland Governor Wes Moore said that Trump’s denial was “deeply frustrating,” leaving residents to deal with the wreckage on their own.
“President Trump and his Administration have politicized disaster relief, and our communities are the ones who will pay the price,” said Moore.
Vermont officials similarly underscored that damages caused by July storms far exceeded what locals could afford to fix on their own.
“It’s well over the annual budget or two years’ budget (of some towns), to fix those roads,” Eric Forand, Vermont’s emergency management director, told the Associated Press.
Sooooo that goes both way, right? Blue states can stop paying fed taxes, right?
They should. Money is the only language these assholes speak
Every single blue state has to stop paying if they aren’t getting what they are supposed to. No more subsidies for the red states, let them sort out their own shit for once. We didn’t vote for a dictator so we shouldn’t have one.
I mean, due to Republicans, there is currently a district of 800,000 people being taxed without representation.
Republicans get to be vindictive because they believe they’ve got nothing to lose. They don’t see blue states as winnable and they don’t believe they need those votes to run the country. They focus power within the executive branch and secure the courts in order to rubber stamp unitary executive authority.
Democrats have to be servile because they believe they can’t win without red-state support. They consistently insist that states like Texas and Florida are within their reach if they just move a little farther rightward. And they believe they need the support from these states in order to secure the power to govern nationally. They focus on securing legislative majorities because they believe they need 60 votes in the Senate and a surplus of Democrats in the House in order to affect any kind of policy reforms.
Taxes are collected at the point of individual employment and business transaction. My employer sends a chunk of my paycheck directly to the IRS. My company pays business taxes directly to the US Treasury. None of it passes through any state or local agency. And state/local agencies have no authority over the federal collections process.
Blue states do host a variety of federal assets and employees. So, you could see a state government try and pull a Ft. Sumtner - effectively threatening to evict federal employees and claim federal property as their own - because they don’t like federal policy. But the last time states tried that it ended very badly for them.