Coloradans for a long time have understood that the Trump administration is punishing their state out of political spite.
Now there’s proof.
It was always shocking to think that an American president could so subvert democracy as to use taxpayer money to extort a whole state, but direct evidence demands the victim move beyond disbelief to action. The founders of the United States based a war for independence in part on their complaint that George III imposed taxation without representation. The Trump administration has one-upped the king. It imposes taxation with retaliation.
Like the colonies, Colorado doesn’t have to take tyrannical abuse sitting down.
As first reported by The Denver Post, the “smoking gun” came during a discovery hearing last week in federal court, where the disclosure of a White House email made the administration’s calculated attack on Colorado explicit. The purpose of the email, sent as President Donald Trump was raging about the incarceration in Colorado of election denier Tina Peters, was to convene a “brainstorm call” among federal agency officials about what they could do “with respect to Colorado.” They were to discuss “grants and federal support” to the state.
The fallout was immediate. In the following days, the administration was reported to be cutting $615 million in green energy funds and $109 million in green transportation grants. It denied the state disaster recovery funds for wildfire and flooding. It moved to dismantle the world-renowned climate science hub NCAR in Boulder. It froze federal funds in Colorado for food and childcare. Trump vetoed a bipartisan bill to fund a clean water project in the rural southeast part of the state.
The lawsuit that disgorged the email was brought by the state to address a previous act of illegal federal hostility: Trump’s decision to move Space Command out of Colorado, which Trump himself tied to his dislike of Colorado’s universal mail ballot system when he announced the move in September.
Upon learning of the email, the judge in the case, R. Brooke Jackson, spoke for us all when he said, “I’ve never seen anything like it. I’ve never even imagined something like it.”
In truth, other evidence had been trickling in. In other court documents, the administration admitted it had cut off funding to Colorado and other states led by Democrats for purely political reasons, The New York Times reported last month. No less an authority than ultra-MAGA U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert of Windsor told a podcaster in early August that Trump vetoed the clean water project bill over Peters’ incarceration.
This is not how a republic functions. The administration is treating Colorado as enemy territory. How should the state respond?
U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper of Colorado has called for an investigation by federal inspectors general. That’s a good start, but it’s the bare minimum.
Christopher Armitage, a Substack writer, has spearheaded the idea of a coordinated effort in states led by Democrats to keep federal tax revenues in escrow until the federal government aligns its behavior with constitutional principles. Here’s how it would work: For most Americans, employers take federal taxes out of worker paychecks and send that money to the IRS. But legislatures in multiple states outraged by Trump’s attacks and corruption could make laws that channel those taxes to the states, which would hold onto the funds until state officials are assured the federal government will manage them lawfully.
A key point of leverage for Colorado and many Democratic-led states, and a major reason for their grievance, is that every year they send billions more to the federal government than they get in return, according to IRS data analyzed by the nonprofit USAFacts.
The legality of this scheme is uncertain. But its deployment would come in answer to immeasurable lawlessness by an administration that’s checked by virtually no meaningful accountability (and led by a man the Colorado Supreme Court ruled is an insurrectionist). The law is less a determinant than is the momentum of enough states willing to take a stand.
A multistate tax escrow is just one form of “soft secession” Colorado can pursue in resistance to an enemy federal government. The alternative is for Coloradans to do nothing while the administration retaliates against them with their own tax dollars.
(0) comments
Welcome to the discussion.
Log In
Keep it Clean. Please avoid obscene, vulgar, lewd, racist or sexually-oriented language.
PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR CAPS LOCK.
Don't Threaten. Threats of harming another person will not be tolerated.
Be Truthful. Don't knowingly lie about anyone or anything.
Be Nice. No racism, sexism or any sort of -ism that is degrading to another person.
Be Proactive. Use the 'Report' link on each comment to let us know of abusive posts.
Share with Us. We'd love to hear eyewitness accounts, the history behind an article.