Thursday, December 12, 2019

Give Us Your Tired, Your Poor, Your Huddled Masses...

...And we'll pack them up and fling to the far corners of our country where folks neither want nor can support them. Or so say the lords of the high castle: New York City. Now they have temporarily stopped their "encourage them to come, then pay them to leave" program, but that delay tactic is a common political convenience. Like a Heisman running back they will simply wait for their blockers to open a gap and take it in for the score. It is worth noting that NYC tried a similar tactic with their attempt to undermine the U.S. Constitution but SCOTUS will have none of it.

The same tactic is used right here. Think of all the time that a developer has willingly withdrawn a demand for public subsidy of their profit margins only to come back, when public outrage has cooled, to demand, and get, as good or better a deal. Watch as unpopular, custom-crafted F&F regulations are pulled off the agenda only to re-appear when in-the-pocket pols think "the time is right."

NYC just does it on a grander scale. After all, if you can do it there you can do it anywhere.