Instead of elucidating the criteria used in his extension decision, Cuomo offered a two-part “matrix” for deciding whether individual businesses will be allowed to reopen: First, in his words, “How important is a business to society, how essential is it?” Second, “How safely can the business operate?” It is not the role of a state bureaucrat to decide how essential an enterprise is. That is a judgment for consumers to make. To its employees, every business is essential. Perhaps the governor should let voters decide how essential the vast state bureaucracy is, how many staffers and diversity managers should be furloughed or fired during the current shut-down, and how many politicians should continue receiving their salaries.
The capriciousness of government decisions of business “importance” has already been patent in Michigan’s and other states’ shut-down orders. Residents of New York City still have access to the city’s great parks, probably because Mayor Bill DeBlasio uses one of them himself. (It is not the park that one might predict, however. Though New York’s mayoral mansion is within easy walking distance of Manhattan’s Central Park and is located within a smaller riverside park, DeBlasio is driven 24 miles most mornings to and from Brooklyn’s Prospect Park for jogging, since that is his preferred venue.) De Blasio does not have a young child, so New York City’s children’s playgrounds are now boarded up. Ditto the schools.
It also helps in being designated “essential” to be part of the traditional big government portfolio. The construction of affordable housing, homeless shelters, and public housing projects may continue under the New York shutdown, but not garden variety commercial and residential building. Renewable energy projects to support those homeless shelters and affordable housing may also continue.
ConservativeChick
Article URL : https://amgreatness.com/2020/04/22/the-deadly-costs-of-extended-shutdown-orders/