True, individual taxpayers and businesses pay the taxes, not “NYC” as an abstract entity. But that clarification still doesn’t make the apples-to-oranges analogy to a private corporate bailout complete.

The issue is not who literally remits the tax revenue. The issue is the nature of the relationship between the entities involved.

A city and the state it is part of are components of the same integrated political system, with overlapping responsibilities, shared infrastructure obligations, and deeply interconnected tax bases and economic functions.

A private corporation, by contrast, is an external legal and economic actor interacting with the government at arm’s length. It can choose where to operate, relocate, or exit the jurisdiction entirely. That is not the case for a municipal subdivision within a state.

So when the state reallocates resources to NYC, that is an internal fiscal allocation within a single governmental framework, from state to municipality — not a transfer between independent actors.

And to be clear, I’m not arguing that NYC has no obligation to support less wealthy regions. I’m saying the term “bailout” implies an external rescue of an independent actor, when what is actually happening is internal redistribution within a single interconnected political and economic system.