I wrote a four-part series last year about coronavirus and big government (here, here, here, and here), so it goes without saying that the first two lines of this tweet deserve some sort of accuracy award for hitting the nail on the head.
But the sentiment expressed in the last line of the tweet also deserves some sort of award.
I don’t know if the award should be for false hope or naive expectation, but I am sadly confident that everything will stay the same. Or perhaps get even worse.
Simply stated, instead of the deregulation that’s needed, here are some more likely outcomes.
- The World Health Organization will get rewarded with a bigger budget and more power, notwithstanding its failures.
- The Centers for Disease Control will get rewarded with a bigger budget and more power, notwithstanding its failures.
- The Food and Drug Administration will get rewarded with a bigger budget and more power, notwithstanding its failures.
Why am I so pessimistic? Because I understand “public choice,” which is the application of micro-economic analysis (things like incentives) to the behavior of politicians and bureaucrats. In other words, people in Washington act in ways to advance their own interests.
Just in case all this isn’t clear, here are a few headlines and tweets to drive the point home.
We’ll start with an understatement.
And here are examples of that failure.
Starting with a column in the Wall Street Journal.
And this tweet.
There are many more headlines that tell tragic stories.
From the Houston Chronicle.
Here’s a very sad and succinct headline.
Government intervention also hurt in little ways.
This tweet tells us the lesson we should learn.
As does this tweet as well.
One of Trump’s great failures was protectionism.
So we shouldn’t be surprised that trade barriers also hurt the fight against the pandemic.
And here’s a tweet about the FDA’s bungling.
Don’t forget that bureaucracy and big government also caused problems in other nations.
Such as the United Kingdom.
Sounds like the bureaucrats in the U.K. want to compete with the FDA and CDC for some sort of incompetence award.
There was a better response in Germany because the private sector played a much bigger role.
And the German approach was better than the United States as well.
Needless to say, the WHO also deserves some negative attention.
Indeed, it should come with this warning label.
And we’ll close by shifting back to the failure of government in the United States.
This column from the New York Times captures the real lesson of the past 12 months.
P.S. At the risk of outing myself as a libertarian, this image tells us everything we need to know. As does this collection of cartoons.
[…] There was a lot of bad policy during the pandemic, with the health bureaucracies (the CDC and FDA) being especially incompetent. […]
[…] column focused on insights from my five-part series (see here, here, here, here, and here) about the failure of big […]
[…] column focused on insights from my five-part series (see here, here, here, here, and here) about the failure of big […]
[…] I definitely criticized the Food and Drug Administration for its many mistakes during the pandemic, I only made passing reference to that bureaucracy when referencing the […]
[…] government, by contrast, there’s very little flexibility (as we saw during the pandemic). And when politicians and bureaucrats do act, they often respond to political incentives that lead […]
[…] Because governments continue to make things worse, but not in ways that are significantly new or […]
[…] Because governments continue to make things worse, but not in ways that are significantly new or […]
[…] government, by contrast, there’s very little flexibility (as we saw during the pandemic). And when politicians and bureaucrats do act, they often respond to political incentives that lead […]
[…] government, by contrast, there’s very little flexibility (as we saw during the pandemic). And when politicians and bureaucrats do act, they often respond to political incentives that lead […]
[…] private sector reacted quickly (when allowed by sluggish and inefficient government) to the coronavirus pandemic. We quickly got everything from […]
[…] 2021, I authored a five-part series (see here, here, here, here, and here) on how big government hindered a quick and effective response to the coronavirus […]
[…] 2021, I authored a five-part series (see here, here, here, here, and here) on how big government hindered a quick and effective response to the coronavirus […]
[…] March 2020 and January 2021, I authored a five-part series (see here, here, here, here, and here) on how big government hindered a quick and effective response to the coronavirus […]
[…] that was the point of a five-part series (see here, here, here, here, and here) on the […]
[…] coronavirus and the failure of big government (here, here, here, here, and here), as well as columns specifically highlighting the failures of the FDA, CDC, […]
[…] five-part series about coronavirus and the failure of big government (here, here, here, here, and here), as well as columns specifically highlighting the failures of the FDA, CDC, and WHO […]
[…] my five-part series on coronavirus and the failure of big government (here, here, here, here, and here), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) received some unflattering […]
[…] my five-part series on coronavirus and the failure of big government (here, here, here, here, and here), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) received some unflattering […]
[…] given the federal government’s incompetent response to the pandemic, I’m an even bigger fan of federalism […]
[…] didn’t give Trump a grade, positive or negative, regarding coronavirus. The federal government failed, but those failures largely were independent of the White […]
[…] didn’t give Trump a grade, positive or negative, regarding coronavirus. The federal government failed, but those failures largely were independent of the White […]
[…] give Trump a grade, positive or negative, regarding coronavirus. The federal government failed, but those failures largely were independent of the White […]
[…] has been a dark cloud. But if we want to find a silver lining, the government’s bungled response to the pandemic has […]
[…] has been a dark cloud. But if we want to find a silver lining, the government’s bungled response to the pandemic […]
[…] has been a dark cloud. But if we want to find a silver lining, the government’s bungled response to the pandemic […]
Reblogged this on boudica.us.