Montana Motor Stables: March 2020

I wrote about “Coronavirus and Big Government” on March 22 and then followed up on March 27 with “Coronavirus and Big Government, Part II.”

Now it’s time for the third installment, and we’ll start with this hard-hitting video from Reason, which shows how red tape has hindered the development and deployment of testing in the United States.

Next, here are a bunch of stories and tweets about the deadly impact of bureaucracy and regulation.

As with the Part I and Part II, feel free to click on any of the stories for the details.

By the way, the problem of excessive government exists in other nations.

Here are two tweets about the situation in the United Kingdom.

The first one deals with having to get government approval for medical devices.

The second one deals with how politicians and bureaucrats have misallocated public health resources – similarly to some of the foolish misadventures of the FDA and CDC (and let’s not forget the World Health Organization).

I’ll close with another story from the United States.

This report from Reason is especially useful because it contains a 30-minute interview with Professor Alex Tabarrok of George Mason University. So if you liked the short video at the start of this column, you’ll definitely want to click through and watch this video.

The message here isn’t that government shouldn’t exist. As I wrote earlier this month, collective action is appropriate to protect life, liberty, and property. Needless to say, that libertarian principle applies during a pandemic.

But that doesn’t mean government should be micro-managing everything.

In normal times, excessive regulation is a costly nuisance because things cost more and take longer.

In a crisis, however, that means needless death and suffering. Which is exactly what’s happening today.

Let’s hope the folks in Washington learn from this awful experience.

P.S. Another lesson to be learned is the Seventh Theorem of Government.

Five days ago, I wrote “Coronavirus and Big Government” to highlight how sloth-like bureaucracy and stifling red tape deserve much of the blame for America’s slow response to the crisis.

And I started that column by sharing four points from a previous column on “Government, Coronavirus, and Libertarianism.” I’ll start today’s column by repeating the final observation.

4. The federal government has hindered an effective response to the coronavirus.

Here’s a video from John Stossel documenting the federal government’s clumsy incompetence.

And here are a bunch of stories and tweets that provide additional elaboration.

Feel free to click on the underlying stories if you want to get even angrier about the deadly impact of big government.

The silver lining to all the bad news is that politicians and bureaucrats have been relaxing regulatory barriers.

But will they learn the right lesson and permanently repeal government-created barriers that hinder the provision of health care?

Is it true, as Robert Tracinski wrote for the Bulwark, that “We’re All Libertarians now”?

This talking point has since been taken up by others in a more technically accurate form: there are no libertarians in a pandemic. The idea is that when a crisis hits, everyone suddenly realizes how much they need Big Government. This is a bizarre argument to make about a virus that got a foothold partly because of the corrupt and tyrannical policies of a communist government in China. The outbreak is currently at its worst in Italy, where socialized medicine has not turned out to be a panacea. And it was allowed to get out of control in America because the feds imposed an incompetent government monopoly on COVID-19 testing, blocking the use of better and faster tests developed by private companies. …There has been a surge of emergency deregulation to lift artificial barriers that prevent people from solving problems. …the loosening of federal controls on the private development of diagnostic testing, after the disastrous attempt to centralize it all at the CDC. We’re also seeing the suspension of restrictive licensing requirements on doctors and nurses to allow them to work across state lines, so they can go where the shortages are worst. There has also been a whole series of waivers on restrictions on the transportation and serving of food and beverages in order to help restaurants stay in business and feed their customers by offering curb-side service.

Needless to say, I hope Tracinski is right.

But I worry that the net result of this crisis is that

we’ll have more red tape and the CDC and FDA will have bigger budgets.

If you think I’m being too pessimistic, just remember that the Department of Veterans Affairs was rewarded with more money after letting veterans die on secret waiting lists, the IRS was rewarded with more money after persecuting Tea Party groups to help Obama’s political prospects, and the education monopoly endlessly gets rewarded with more money even though student outcomes stagnate or deteriorate.

All as predicted by the First Theorem of Government.

Montana Motor Stables

Tuesday, March 31, 2020

Ham Radio Portable Showcase | Featuring K9BBN

Monday, March 30, 2020

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Leftovers to the Rescue! - Potato Pancakes from 1732

Coronavirus and Big Government, Part III March 30, 2020 by Dan Mitchell

Exceptional use of non-CE marked medical devices

Coronavirus and Big Government, Part II March 27, 2020 by Dan Mitchell