Thursday, April 23, 2020

More Bureaucracy Is Not the Answer to COVID-19

Whether it's through more centralization, more powers to the federal government, or the creation of new bureaucracy to address the pandemic, the hope is that next time around, a new arrangement will allow for a better and faster response.

After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the federal government created the Department of Homeland Security and a centralized airport security agency, the Transportation Security Administration.

First, even if one assumes that the problem with our lack of preparedness was excessive government decentralization, I'm curious as to whether Emanuel would agree to get rid of the many agencies and programs that already exist, like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, that would become redundant under his plan.

Second, a lack of preparation for the COVID-19 pandemic is a government failure of epic proportions and has nothing to do with an inadequate budget or a lack of programs and agencies supposedly charged with preparing for such a risk.

Any new bureaucracy would be part of the same unwieldy government that failed us during this pandemic, botched the launch of the Affordable Care Act website, and pushed us into a 17-year war in Iraq under the notion that it threatened us with weapons of mass destruction.

Why would we believe that a government that fails repeatedly will somehow suddenly perform better if only we add another agency?

The private sector has proven to be more resilient and flexible than the government.

https://reason.com/2020/04/23/more-bureaucracy-is-not-the-answer-to-covid-19/

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