(09-14-2018, 11:04 PM)JagNGeorgia Wrote:

(09-14-2018, 07:54 PM)TJBender Wrote: "Sorry you lost your house. Here's a $500 fine for making us come get you."

Somehow that just seems really awful.

If you had the ability to leave and chose not to then I don’t see a problem with imposing a small fee for your rescue. While you may think that’s mean, I think staying in the path of a storm that everyone is warning may destroy your home and potentially kill you is stupid. Having said that, I think the fee should be used sparingly and only on those that had the ability to leave. People limited by medical issues and the like would be exempt.

Now you're asking the government to draw a big red line, which is something we've seen plenty of evidence that they're incapable of doing.

There's a difference between mean and inhumane. Even putting the inhumane argument aside, how are you going to enforce it? Send them to collections? Good luck with that, for all kinds of reasons. Have the IRS garnish their wages? Good luck with that, too--you've just weaponized the IRS, and your political career is over. You'd have to make it a criminal offense to stick, and the first time you try to send someone to jail for nonpayment, the Eighth Amendment would be drawn into the conversation. There's really no winning from a practical standpoint, even if you are of the opinion that it's not morally wrong to hand someone a bill for rescuing them from their destroyed house in their now-former neighborhood.

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