While the politicians all cry out (including NH Governor Chris Sununu) “I GOT US THROUGH THIS!!” COVID thing, hardly any of them are willing to reflect on how many DIDN’T make it through because of their COVID lockdowns.
How many jobs were lost, how many businesses were shuttered, how many companies were never started?
Industrial planners everywhere face an information problem. From the standpoint of consumer and producer satisfaction, how can a planning board know which industries should be “born” and which should “die,” which should be subsidized and which should be self-sufficient, which should receive tax credits and which should not? A computer the size of the United States could not manage the innumerable interdependent decisions made every day in our economy. Is it reasonable to expect an army of bureaucrats to do better?
-Walter Williams
How many dreams were shattered, how many people died? What was the human cost of this all (and I’m not just talking about those who died)?
They don’t talk about it much – not good for their re-election or in seeking higher office (“failing upward”).
How many of them have been remorseful in admitting “I didn’t know enough?” How many have actually gone out and apologized to those whose lives they ruined? I haven’t seen a one here in NH, that’s for dang sure.
Williams is right – Government can’t do what its leaders say it can: manage an entire economy. Nor should it. Government should stick to what it is supposed to do instead of taking on that which it shouldn’t. After all, it isn’t always good at what it should be doing.
So, other than for ego-boosting, what gives the politicians the right (and the Power) to go outside their boundaries?
Sadly, the answer is that we, the electorate, allow it. We elect them and we elect those that won’t stand up to them as well. The Democrats here in NH have wailed about Sununu, yet even as they controlled the NH House and NH Senate, they failed to REALLY stand up and stop the nonsense by not calling their chambers back into session and vote to stop the Emergency Orders.
Until this changes, we’re stuck with mediocrity.
(H/T: Cafe Hayek)
