This is a stunning, but not surprising admission, the United Kingdom doubled the amount of money for their National Health Service ... and nothing good happened. The money went down the drain of the bureaucracy.  Keep this in mind when, for example, we are told raising taxes will fix the climate. 

And, from LinkedIn. The federal government is sclerotic and seemingly incapable of internal change. Hope that Musk gets a chance to reform it. 

Okay, fellow conservatives, let's talk. I do not believe the (many) things going wrong with the disaster response in the southern Appalachians is a conspiracy by the Biden Administration. Since the creation of FEMA, these foul-ups in major disasters are routine. To demonstrate my point, here is a short excerpt from my book  Warnings   pertaining to the aftermath of Hurricane Andrew (1992) which destroyed 28,000 homes and damaged 110,000 in the south Miami area.    In south Dade County, the nightmare worsened. Showers and thunderstorms moved through the area, causing further damage to homes with open roofs. There was no food, no water, no medical attention. The State of Florida’s response was completely inadequate, mainly comprised of sending a few National Guard troops to the area.   State officials then told the Feds they didn’t need federal troops. When the on-scene locals (Dade County officials) told the Feds otherwise, the Feds began playing bureaucrat....

Heck, even I knew COVID-19 cases were NOT supposed to be put on the ship. Headline from "The Daily Mail." Long-time readers may be tired of reading my comments about the federal bureaucracy in general -- and the CDC in particular -- over the eleven years of this blog. Still, because the problem worsens by the day, I'm going write about this again. Think about it: a just a month ago, the CDC was telling us not  to take the common-sense protective measure of wearing masks. Now, they have completely reversed themselves. The reversal wasn't based on some comprehensive study, it was just bureaucrats being bureaucrats. This must stop. The coronavirus crisis has put the problem in stark relief. As soon as the immediate crisis has passed, President Trump must  address this vital issue. Our nation's future is imperiled by the federal bureaucracy . My suggestions: Eliminate civil service. Federal workers should have no more and no less protection than worke...

Photo of the closed Washington Monument. CBS News. In Warnings,  I discuss the hundreds  of lives that were lost during Katrina and in other situations due to the decisions of the government bureaucracy. And, how no one has been called to account for those decisions. While politics does not interest me, the quality of government does. As background, a number of years ago, I was the chair of our trade associations lobbying committee. Washington insiders have -- for at least 20 years -- talked about "the Washington Monument Syndrome" where bureaucrats, when facing budget cuts, offer to cut highly visible services (policeman, closing the Washington Monument) rather than useless fat. I was reminded of that while reading this morning's Wichita Eagle  online: Independent studies have shown that Kansas has one of the largest number of state employees, per capita, of any state. There is LOTS of fat that can be cut. It is long past time that this problem be addressed. ...

But this play-it-safe attitude [of the Food and Drug Administration's] --even at the expense of human lives--is creating a devastating and potentially far more deadly impact: The pipeline for new antibiotics is drying up. Since the 1940s the miracle of penicillin and its relatives has saved tens of millions of lives. Antibiotics easily conquered such illnesses as pneumonia and tuberculosis, which routinely killed countless numbers of people each year. Bacteria, of course, can become drug-resistant, but for decades pharmaceutical companies, especially in the U.S., routinely came up with new antibiotics to fell new killer germs. Now, however, the flow of new stuff has dried to a trickle. Authorities are taking note of all this, as is the U.S. Congress. Henry Waxman has declared that the pharmaceutical industry's failure to develop a reliable new class of antibiotics is an example of "market failure.” No it isn't, Henry; it's a failure of government regulation. T...

I write about bureaucracy from time to time here on the blog (including the two postings below) and I also cover the subject in Warnings: The True Story of How Science Tamed the Weather . You might wonder why. Before I started researching Warnings , I had the same problems with bureaucracy that most people encounter. Ask me about my last visit to the Kansas DMV office; what a nightmare! But, it didn’t seem to be a particularly important topic. When I was researching the Katrina chapters of Warnings I was amazed and appalled at what I found: Decisions made by bureaucrats directly lead to the deaths of hundreds of people. And, no one has ever been called to account for these decisions!   In the “Murder by Bureaucracy” chapter, I talk about holding rescuers away from New Orleans and making them take a sexual harassment course while the city was filling with water. About how decisions were made to force Katrina flood victims from escaping. And, to block private sector companie...

Below I have a posting about the FCC's Emergency Action Notification System and plans to expand and complicate it -- at taxpayer's expense. In Part II, I want to comment on a Wall Street Journal   article (subscription may be required) about small businesspeople wanting to create bureaucracies to stifle competition. cat groomers, tattoo artists, tree trimmers and about a dozen other specialists across the country... are clamoring for more rules governing small businesses. Economists say, and I agree, But economists—and workers shut out of fields by educational requirements or difficult exams—say licensing mostly serves as a form of protectionism, allowing veterans of the trade to box out competitors who might undercut them on price or offer new services. "Occupations prefer to be licensed because they can restrict competition and obtain higher wages," said Morris Kleiner, a labor professor at the University of Minnesota. "If you go to any statehouse, you...

Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion. --- Parkinson's Law, C. Northcote Parkinson The morning of September 11th, we were all horrified by the images on television of the burning World Trade Center, videotaped replays of the aircraft hitting the second tower, the Pentagon burning, etc. But, I'm certain you don't  remember the Emergency Action Notification System (EANS) (tones, followed by, "This is a test...") coming on with the annoying tones and announcements as the event unfolded. Even though its primary purpose is to notify us of an attack, it was never activated. In spite of the biggest emergency since the Cuban Missile Crisis, EANS wasn't used yet somehow everyone got the word.  I attended a government disaster meeting in Norman, OK several months after September 11th and there were two high-level representatives of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in attendance. During a break, I went over and introduced myself...

Those that have read Warnings  know that I am quite critical of the FEMA and Federal Aviation Administration bureaucracies. In addition to what I have written in the book, I have stated on this blog, several times, the problem of crippling bureaucracy is not limited to those agencies. Frighteningly, it apparently extends to the CIA. Here is an important article from Powerline . Some excerpts: A challenge to free societies today is the growth in size, power, and cost of highly paid, non-producing administrators and bureaucrats. These Soviet-style nomenklatura classes can stifle the fundamental missions of organizations. Bureaucracy perverts human nature. The CIA is filled with brave, talented, patriotic, and energetic people, but the system does not encourage clandestine work. Clandestine work is hard and lonely, and it takes place in dingy hotel rooms in dysfunctional countries, far from family. Any CIA officer who goes to hunt bin Laden, for example, will be living in tough ...