Letter to the editor: Using tax money to pick winners, losers

When the government decides the coronavirus crisis is over, rest assured that the politicians will review their response, find minor areas of improvement and ultimately pronounce a job well done.

Our parents and grandparents gave the governor the authority to close businesses — and to choose which businesses must close. You can have the oil in your car changed but you can’t buy a car. You can’t buy a bottle of spirits but you can visit a beer distributor. Some businesses qualify for loans. Some families qualify for relief payments. Others do not. However well-intentioned, the politicians are picking winners and losers and using our money to do it.

Should the government have the authority to prosecute someone for not staying home? Should the government have the authority to use force to place someone in isolation? Today they do. Maybe that’s what we want, maybe not.

The government only has the power to do the things it does because we have granted that power to it. Now that we’ve seen and lived some of it, do we like what it looks like? We need to decide if the government knows what’s best for our families or if we do.

Our children and grandchildren will repay the trillions of dollars that we have spent and we owe it to them to work to ensure that all this was, in fact, necessary, and if not to fix it. We must have these conversations at the dinner table then inform the debate in Harrisburg and Washington, D.C.

Matt Pergar

Unity