Governor Gavin Newsom today announced that California has officially overtaken Japan to become the world’s fourth-largest economy, according to newly released data from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA). April, 2025
The Trump administration’s efforts to bully California in the past week by sending in contingents of the California Coast Guard and active-duty Marines to ‘guard’ its ICE agents that are bent on rounding up as many undocumented workers in California as possible, is almost comical.
Would they try the same with Japan or Germany, who have economies that are basically the same size? Of course not, though Trump wants to pick on smaller Canada, and maybe Denmark’s Greenland.
Of the 850,000 farmworkers in California that are providing close to one-quarter of the agricultural produce of America, some 400,000 are seasonal workers (i.e., with permits) or undocumented, which is why President Trump has told ICE workers to stop rounding them up, for fear Americans will no longer have enough fresh (or canned) produce to eat.
It’s a sign of the Trump administration’s tremendous ignorance that their efforts to deport as many of the 11 million undocumented U.S. workers is looking worse than ridiculous, it is enraging the populous of those cities that depend on immigrants to work in the service and hospitality industries, as well as feed them.
If Trump also thinks he can humble California by attacking the University of California system (UC) as he is doing to Harvard, he is also mistaken.
The system's ten campuses presently have a combined student body of 299,407 students, 26,100 faculty members, 192,400 staff members, over 2.5 million living alumni, and $41.6 billion in annual operating revenues.
And as an alumnus, I can attest it teaches or promotes no particular ideology or political view, just the scientific and social science truths that are verified and tested empirically, not by rumor or conspiracy theories.
Trump and the Republican Party have succeeded in bullying the smaller red states they have dominated since the 1970s, making them the poorest states in income (many have no minimum wage), health care, social services and education.
Republican led red states are mostly dependent on the excess tax revenues passed on to them from blue states.
“In 2023, the federal government collected around $4.67 trillion from states and their residents through taxes on individuals and businesses and redistributed about $4.56 trillion back to states and residents through programs like Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, food stamps, and education grants, says USA Facts.
Virginia alone depended on $79 billion in transfer payments in 2023 to balance its budget from states like California and New York, who contributed $78B and $89B in 2023 to the federal kitty.
So why have Republicans gone to all this trouble that will do very little harm to the likes of UC and California’s economy? Their red states can’t do without the income coming from blue states.
Oh, their leaders want more tax cuts, which will continue to increase federal debt. Americans will find out soon enough that’s not how to stay in business.
Harlan Green © 2025
Follow Harlan Green on Twitter: https://twitter.com/HarlanGreen
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