The Founding Fathers thought that federalism was a pretty good idea on the grounds that different people might like to be ruled in different ways. Later on, the observation was made that having 50 different attempts at getting things right might help the country zero in on the things that work a little quicker. The breadth of the federal bureaucracy has entirely missed the point of that second part — they’re trying to control the COVID-19 pandemic by diktats and edicts from the center. This is not a sensible manner of ruling 330 million people.
As an example, the FDA has just told a Bill Gates-associated group to stop testing for COVID-19. It didn’t do so because there was anything wrong with the tests, because there wasn’t.
Previously unknown cases were being discovered, and the tests being used were more accurate than the ones from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that the FDA had been insisting everyone must use and only use. No, the problem was that the tests did not have the correct authorization. If the paper-shuffler hasn’t signed off on it, you can’t do it — most Americans became Americans to escape exactly that sort of governance elsewhere in the world.
Other places in the world have done this rather better. The Faroe Islands suffer dreadfully from a lack of FDA and similar oversight. So, the vet testing the salmon farms for virus infections adapted his chemical set to test for COVID-19. The Faroes is now free of infection and has reopened — even the soccer clubs are now playing. Germany is also a federal nation like the United States, but they really believe in it. Public health belongs to the local authorities, and so, they used the 400 labs capable of doing the work: government, local authority, university, and private. Germany has done extremely well in keeping deaths down, and that is largely attributed to their success with testing.
So, what is it that has gone wrong in the U.S.? The hint is in what The Hill gets wrong here:
That is exactly, wholly, and entirely the wrong way around. The authorities have been trying to determine what everyone may do down to the finest detail. They want one national policy for all. The countries that have done well are those who allowed people who knew what they were doing to get on with things. You know, the places that were actually federal in operation rather than just as part of the job title.
It’s also possible to muse on the surprises of these past few months. Who would imagine that Germans would end up freer of bureaucracy than Americans? Yet, it is so. The FDA has just authorized a home testing kit from a company called Everlywell. Well, OK, that’s nice, finally some progress. But it comes with this caveat:
In America, it is necessary to have a written and signed permission from a government-licensed professional (a prescription) to stick a Q-tip up your own nose. “Land of the free” doesn’t quite cut it, does it?
The gross mistake has been to attempt to do everything in a centralized, national manner. And to think, there are those who think that education, healthcare, the energy system, and the like will benefit from similar oversight and ministrations from Washington. That’s just not the way to run the majority of a continent.
Tim Worstall (@worstall) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He is a senior fellow at the Adam Smith Institute. You can read all his pieces at The Continental Telegraph.
