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Blue States would start withholding any Federal Goverment payments from business and individuals in their state that would total about $4.66B per day true orfalse
Executive summary
The claim that "Blue States would start withholding any Federal Government payments from business and individuals in their state that would total about $4.66B per day" is not established in the reporting available: some blue-state lawmakers and commentators have proposed or discussed mechanisms to withhold certain federal payments in retaliation for federal funding freezes, but those proposals are limited, untested in court, and target a narrow set of state-controlled transfers rather than all federal inflows; reporting notes obstacles and that most individual income tax flows never pass through state hands [1] [2]. Calculations or a $4.66 billion-per-day figure are not documented in the sources provided — available sources do not mention that exact daily total [1] [2].
1. What legislators are actually proposing — limited, tactical withholding
Legislators in Connecticut, Maryland, New York and Wisconsin have introduced bills that would let states withhold certain payments owed to the federal government or conditionally retain monies the state controls if the federal government unlawfully withholds funds from the state; these proposals typically focus on amounts the state can control (for example, federal tax withholdings from state employees or state-held federal grant transfers), not a blanket stoppage of all federal payments to businesses and individuals within a state [1] [2].
2. Legal and practical constraints experts repeatedly cite
Legal scholars and reporting emphasize practical and constitutional obstacles: most federal individual income taxes are collected directly by the IRS and "never pass through the state government’s hands," so states cannot intercept the majority of federal tax receipts; experts warn that even if a state tried to retaliate, far more money flows from the federal government to states than vice versa, limiting the leverage of any state-side withholding [2] [1].
3. What can be withheld — the narrow targets named in bills
The bills and proposals described in coverage generally target a few narrow categories: (a) federal tax withholdings from state and local government payrolls (which the state collects and remits), (b) state-administered federal grant transfers, or (c) using a state-created "receivership" trust to hold funds temporarily rather than remit immediately. These are transactional and limited remedies designed as political leverage or to compel compliance with judicial decisions, not a universal stoppage of federal benefits to private citizens or businesses [2] [3].
4. Federal response, court fights, and recent enforcement examples
The federal government has asserted its own power during recent disputes: courts and federal agencies have intervened on SNAP and other benefits during the 2025 shutdown episode, with federal judges ordering some payments and USDA issuing guidance about reversing unauthorized state actions — and the administration threatening or taking steps to cancel federal shares or hold states liable for noncompliance [4] [5] [6]. That dynamic shows how such disputes quickly escalate into litigation and federal countermeasures rather than calm bilateral withholding arrangements [4] [6].
5. Political messaging vs. operational reality
Commentators and opinion writers frame withholding federal transfers as a form of "fiscal disobedience" or political retaliation by blue states; examples in The Guardian or Medium suggest creative legal constructs (like treating states as custodians of federal withholdings) as protest tools. But those are advocacy arguments, not descriptions of implemented policy, and they acknowledge prosecution risks and operational complexity [3] [7] [8].
6. No corroboration for a $4.66 billion-per-day figure
The sources provided do not supply or corroborate a calculation that blue-state withholding would amount to $4.66 billion per day; reporting instead emphasizes the asymmetry of flows (states receive more federal money than they remit) and notes that most individual federal tax receipts never transit state systems, undermining the feasibility of such a sweeping daily-withhold plan [9] [1] [2]. Therefore the specific $4.66B/day assertion is not found in current reporting — available sources do not mention that exact total [1] [2].
7. Bottom line and caveats
Blue-state bills and op-eds have advanced the idea of withholding some federal payments as leverage against perceived unlawful federal freezes, but those proposals are narrow, legally untested, and limited by the fact that most federal individual tax payments go directly to the IRS; federal agencies and courts have already played active roles in similar disputes during 2025, often constraining state and federal moves [1] [2] [4]. Any claim that blue states will begin a comprehensive stoppage of all federal payments to businesses and individuals totaling $4.66B/day is not documented in the available reporting and contradicts key legal and logistical points raised in those reports [1] [2].