Same is Unfair

Giving the same sized government Covid-19 rent reimbursement to Louisville renters and New York renters is “unfair”, so says Kenneth Romero. He claims giving the same amount to everybody is a “cycle of unfairness.”

IMHO, if you’re living in New York, you’ve accepted higher costs (and mostly higher wages to cover that). But when catastrophe hits, third-party tax-payers should not be on the hook to reestablish or sustain your higher cost choices. It doesn’t matter if you’re rich city or poor urban (code word for the same city but making less money). I believe what you prior chose matters. What you choose or don’t choose today matters.

What I think is missing as we try to be benevolent to those in a bad situation is consideration that everybody has choices they’ve made. I believe it does not matter if you want to be benevolent with your money; give money to whoever you want! But if your solution involves being benevolent by first taking money from others and then giving it, by name, to the downtrodden, there is a higher standard that must be met.  I’m okay if you want to “for the common good” fund an educational program to convince people to give, but I’m not okay if you do your idea of benevolence with other people’s money.

If you want to live in New York and earn more, pay more, be taxed more, and live more, that’s fine. But you have no right to settle those burdens on others, who innocently chose to live in a different place, earning less, paying less, living less, and being taxed less (until you came along).

This issue of “not same is fair” or “take from one and give to another is fair” keeps coming up. Search this blog for the word “fair” and see some of my other posts.