Once Again, Everything You Need to Know about Government in a Single Story by Dan Mitchell

 Ronald Reagan hit the nail on the head when he warned that government is usually the problem rather than the solution.

It’s not just that the economy suffers when there is too much spending, regulation, and taxing, we also have far too many politicians and bureaucrats who behave as if they’re motivated by personal interest rather than the national interest.

Not that we need any more evidence, but there’s an editorial in today’s Wall Street Journal that perfectly captures what’s wrong with Washington.

Indeed, I’ve even recycled the title that I used just three days ago because the WSJ column is such a powerful example.

Read these excepts about a legal attack against Walmart and ask yourself whether the federal government is acting like mobsters conducting a shakedown operation.

…the Justice Department’s new suit..claims that Walmart “failed to detect and report at least hundreds of thousands of suspicious orders” and that as a pharmacy it “unlawfully filled thousands upon thousands of invalid controlled-substance prescriptions.” …The complaint…is really a 160-page exercise in scapegoating a company because it is well-known and has deep pockets. Walmart doesn’t push pills on opioid addicts. Its pharmacists fill valid prescriptions written by doctors who are licensed by their states and registered with the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). …Walmart says it has passed tens of thousands of leads about suspicious prescriptions to state and federal law enforcement. It’s the job of the DEA and state medical boards to investigate and revoke doctors’ licenses and prescribing privileges if there’s wrongdoing.

For all intents and purposes, the company is in a no-win situation.

When pharmacists have refused to fill questionable prescriptions, doctors have sometimes sued for defamation and patients have sometimes sued for discrimination. Several states have prohibited pharmacists from interfering with the doctor-patient relationship by second-guessing valid prescriptions. No federal law supersedes these state laws. …the DEA has suggested that some combinations of opioids never have a legitimate medical purpose and should never be filled. Yet the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services continues to cover these opioid combinations… In effect DOJ is asking the federal court to overrule state law in favor of informal federal guidance and a vague notion of pharmaceutical best practices. This harassment was typical of the Obama era.

This issue reminds me of the federal government’s policy on money laundering. In that case, the government not only orders banks to spy on customers, but also to read their minds to somehow figure out if a financial transaction is connected to criminal behavior.

The net result is a very costly and intrusive system that has utterly failed to achieve its purpose of reducing criminal behavior.

But that doesn’t stop Uncle Sam from periodically imposing heavy fines on banks for nit-picking violations, just like the federal government today wants to extort a bunch of money out of Walmart.

It’s almost enough to make you think there’s a pattern.

P.S. I have a .500 batting average in my experiences as a global money launderer.