I want you to think of this as a fight, as in martial arts, boxing, wrestling or any style of weapons fighting. You almost NEVER knock out your opponent in one single move, and nearly never disable them from a single move. Everything is based on combinations that set up your opponent for his demise.
Most often, a series of feints, a few well placed weak blows to move his defenses... and the person is wide open to the REAL damage coming. In other cases, you set them up with a few moves, get them off balance or in a weak position... and then deliver a series of effective blows to disable them.
These $$$ fines are one more in a series of blows. By themselves, they aren't effective... but in combination with other parts of a planned attack, they are incredibly effective. If the county is facing fines, in addition to employee walk-outs, protests, solidarity strikes by other workers, internal sabotage by disgruntled workers, bad publicity, etc... it all adds up to wearing down those county officials.
All it takes is a few belligerent counties to be "corrected" by public pressure... and the others counties will start getting the message too. Beat one of the pack leaders... and most of the rest of the pack will back down. If any other county steps up to demand the vax... then rinse and repeat.
It's also not a small sum, just over 1% of their budget for what I could find quickly, and if they don't comply the next one will be larger. In a balanced budget state this is going to mean cutting some things. This isn't just a dispersible cost, and if they get hit again it becomes cancelling major programs, which when they're pushing for billions in tourism revenue that won't happen if you start struggling to fill potholes.
People have commented "So what?"
I want you to think of this as a fight, as in martial arts, boxing, wrestling or any style of weapons fighting. You almost NEVER knock out your opponent in one single move, and nearly never disable them from a single move. Everything is based on combinations that set up your opponent for his demise.
Most often, a series of feints, a few well placed weak blows to move his defenses... and the person is wide open to the REAL damage coming. In other cases, you set them up with a few moves, get them off balance or in a weak position... and then deliver a series of effective blows to disable them.
These $$$ fines are one more in a series of blows. By themselves, they aren't effective... but in combination with other parts of a planned attack, they are incredibly effective. If the county is facing fines, in addition to employee walk-outs, protests, solidarity strikes by other workers, internal sabotage by disgruntled workers, bad publicity, etc... it all adds up to wearing down those county officials.
All it takes is a few belligerent counties to be "corrected" by public pressure... and the others counties will start getting the message too. Beat one of the pack leaders... and most of the rest of the pack will back down. If any other county steps up to demand the vax... then rinse and repeat.
It's also not a small sum, just over 1% of their budget for what I could find quickly, and if they don't comply the next one will be larger. In a balanced budget state this is going to mean cutting some things. This isn't just a dispersible cost, and if they get hit again it becomes cancelling major programs, which when they're pushing for billions in tourism revenue that won't happen if you start struggling to fill potholes.