Petty Inflation Pandering

Tis the giving season, dontchaknow, and New York's accidental governor Kathy Hochul is not one to pass up an opportunity to pander. Hot off her reinstatement of the much-maligned plan to charge New Yorkers for driving on the streets of Manhattan (aka "congestion pricing"), she's decided to play Santa Claus for all those adversely affected by the inflation her party created these past few years.

Wait, make that "most of those."

She proposed a one-time payout of $500 to those earning below a certain income threshold, and dubbed it an "Inflation Refund." In typical government fashion, the name tells its own lie. Inflation is indeed a tax, but it's not a tax that actually garners any revenue. The purchasing power lost to inflation is lost to all - your dollars are simply worth less than they were in the past.