Budget shortages. Hits to health care system. Increased immigration enforcement and a diminished ability to fight climate change.
These are some of the challenges that state and county representatives are dealing with as they grapple with recent and expected actions by the Trump administration, which has spent the past six weeks freezing grants, suspending programs and firing federal workers. State Sen. Josh Becker expects these moves to hit California particularly hard, given the state’s historic role in pushing progressive policies and challenging Donald Trump on funding freezes and immigration policies.
“California is a target. We’re absolutely a target. But we’re also going to be the bulwark for this country,” Becker said at a Friday town hall, which brought about 200 residents from across the Peninsula to the Palo Alto Art Center.
While the full impact of federal policies on Silicon Valley remains to be seen and felt, he and county supervisors are bracing for turbulence. San Mateo County Supervisor Ray Mueller, who presented at the event, estimated that recent federal policies could cost the county about $600 million. He added that may require officials to shift and withhold funds from valuable programs.
One big concern: the potential of the administration to change the reimbursement formula for Medicaid, thus requiring state and local jurisdictions to absorb more of the cost, he said. Currently, the federal government provides 30% of the cost. Mueller said he was concerned that this will be reduced and that the state will be required to contribute more.
“We’re not sure where that money will come from,” Mueller said.
The county is already planning for leaner times ahead. Mueller cited the grants that San Mateo County awards to nonprofits through Measure K, a sales tax measure. Normally, the county awards grants for three-year periods. Now, however, county officials are informing all grantees that they can only guarantee it for one year – and in some cases six months – with the expectation that it may have to claw it back to support the hospital system and other social safety net services.
“That’s just one of the impacts that we’re seeing right now,” Mueller said. “It’s very real, it’s on our mind every day and we’re waiting for what’s going to be taken away next.”
Santa Clara County Supervisor Margaret Abe-Koga noted that her county also relies heavily on federal funding to support its $12-billion budget, about half of which is devoted to its health care system. The county could stand to lose about $1.9 billion just for health care and another $400 million in other social services.
“This could really be quite devastating and we’re really bracing ourselves, to be honest,” Abe-Koga said.
Both the state and the counties have already taken some actions to prepare for increasing uncertainty and hostility from Washington, D.C. Both Silicon Valley counties have established Rapid Response hotlines for residents to call to obtain legal aid during immigration enforcement. Santa Clara County has also joined San Francisco in suing the Trump administration over its executive order that instructs the Department of Justice to freeze funding for “sanctuary cities,” which don’t cooperate with the federal government on immigration.
“We are prepared to take legal action as more of these actions are taken by the federal government,” Abe-Koga said.
Impacts on the state are expected to be severe. The Trump administration is withholding $25 billion that had previously been approved in a bipartisan fashion for climate change programs, Becker said. It has also fired 3,400 people from the U.S. Forest Service at a time when wildfire risk remains acute. Becker noted that 57% of the state’s forest land is under federal jurisdiction.
“That’s going to increase the wildfire risk here in California,” Becker said.
Becker acknowledged at the beginning of the event that many people are feeling dispirited by what they’re seeing in the new administration and its approach to civil rights, reproductive rights and – more broadly – democracy. By talking about ignoring court rulings, the administration is breaking the “fundamental checks and balances that have characterized our democracy for almost the last 250 years,” Becker said.
Becker urged the audience to follow the dictum of historian Timothy Snyder, who urged people who want to resist tyranny to “not obey in advance.” As a counterexample, he pointed to Meta, which announced in early January that it will be moving its content safety teams from California to Texas, a state that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg claims without evidence has less “bias.”
“I went into Meta and met with senior leadership to express my severe displeasure about the announcement, timed right after the election, on eliminating fact-checkers and moving the security and content teams to Texas to be freed of bias. … It’s most pernicious because a lot of the entrepreneurs look up to Mark Zuckerberg, so when he says something like this, what does that mean? How will they treat their companies?” Becker said.
Unlike other town halls across the nation, which have often devolved into jeering and interruptions, the crowded event in Palo Alto was cordial and free of disturbance. Partly, that’s because all the speakers at the event were Democrats at the state and county levels, with little sway over the executive branch. While attendees broadly shared the goals of their elected leaders in protecting vulnerable populations from budget cuts and deportations, some told this publication that they wanted to see more fight from their elected representatives.
Dima Ryazanov, who lives in Redwood City, suggested that Republicans and Democrats appear to be playing by different sets of rules, with the latter slowly crafting legislation while the former are quickly taking actions that are taking the country downhill.
Others said they appreciate the effort by elected representatives to bring people together during a difficult time.
“It feels really satisfying to do something after reading all the news and being depressed by the news,” said Cindi Reed, a resident of Redwood City.
Videhi Mallela, a resident of Palo Alto, said it was valuable for her to hear directly from her elected representatives about the impacts of federal actions on her area.
“There is a lot happening and we always know where to get real information,” Mallela said.
Both Becker and Mueller urged the audience to be empathetic toward those who are bearing the brunt of the impacts from the federal actions and to tell their stories. Mueller recalled the June 2023 mass shooting in Half Moon Bay, which claimed the lives of seven farmworkers. After the shooting, Mueller said he went to Half Moon Bay to take photos of the houses that farmworkers live in and to post them on social media. When asked why he is doing that, he responded, “Because you can’t look away.”
“While we at the county and the state are trying to pick up these things, what really moves people to action at times like this is their neighbors telling them stories about what’s happening and the community coming together to care about each other,” Mueller said.
