The coronavirus outbreak has unleashed a vast range of closures, quarantines, and restrictions intended to slow the spread of the disease (see ICYMI, below). But it has also had a countervailing and liberalizing impact: A broad array of rules, regulations, and limitations have been swept aside in recent weeks. Governments have blown up all sorts of legally imposed proscriptions and impediments that were interfering with efforts to respond to the crisis and complicating matters for people trying to live, shop, and work under difficult conditions.
The most vivid examples of government regulations getting in the way of people on the front lines of the pandemic were the Food and Drug Administration’s strict limitations on virus testing, which required states to obtain an Emergency Use Authorization from Washington before they could proceed with developing, testing, and administering coronavirus tests. Initially all tests had to come from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the grievous shortage of kits was compounded by the inability of states and private labs to get moving quickly on tests of their own. Now
those restrictions have been lifted — a blessing, albeit belated.
Ditto the FDA’s easing of rules on the use of ventilators
. Among other impediments, the FDA had strictly controlled where different types of ventilators could be used — for instance, ventilators approved for use at home could not be used in hospitals. Now they can. Devices used to help people with sleep apnea (known as Continuous Positive Airway Pressure machines, or CPAPs) could not be modified to help coronavirus sufferers struggling to breathe. Now they can. It is good that the FDA finally got out of the way. It will be even better if it stays out of the way when the pandemic is over.
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Last week, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) suspended the provisions of the Buy America Act, a foolish piece of protectionism dating back to the Herbert Hoover administration that banned Puerto Rico and other US territories from acquiring personal protective equipment — such as face masks — from non-US sources. “So, while a state can buy masks and protective garments from anywhere,” explained Marc Joffe in Reason
, “territories have been restricted to US sources, exposing them to price hikes and shortages.” The Buy America Act is a shortsighted public policy even in the best of times — a classic illustration of what economists call “rent seeking,” whereby special interests engage in political manipulation to gain economic benefits at the expense of others. Having liberated Puerto Rico and other territories from its provisions because of COVID-19, the federal government ought make sure they stay liberated for good.
There’s been a lot of this type of liberation.
“Governors and mayors across the country have used executive power to waive laws and bypass regulations,” writes Charles Blain, the executive director of Houston’s Urban Reform
, a nonprofit that focuses on urban issues. The rules are being lifted in order to speed goods to the public more quickly, to enable service providers to make their skills available sooner, and to respond to the crisis in other ways. The fact that the regulations can be lifted so easily strongly suggests that doing so does not jeopardize public health or safety. So why do such bureaucratic impediments exist in the first place?
In Texas, Governor Greg Abbott has waived state insurance regulations that prevented doctors from being fully reimbursed for telemedical appointments with patients. He’s also waived size and overweight restrictions on commercial trucking, and lifted rules that barred alcohol industry vehicles from being used to deliver supplies to grocery stores.
In Boston, Mayor Marty Walsh waived the need for restaurants to have a special permit to fill carry-out orders. New York City has dropped the old prohibition on selling wine and liquor together with food in delivery or take-out orders. Similar bans on alcohol sales have been waived in
New Hampshire, Texas, and Maryland.
The city of Bayonne, N.J., has stopped requiring permits for minor plumbing, electrical, and mechanical jobs, requiring only that city hall’s Building Department be notified that such work is taking place. Asheville, S.C., now allows food trucks to operate
in residential areas, thereby enabling them to feed more communities and drive straight into “food deserts.” The state of Oregon will (at last) allow drivers to pump their own gas at service stations. Massachusetts is permitting physicians with valid out-of-state medical licenses
to practice within the state (and to get those licenses recognized within 24 hours). The Transportation Security Administration now permits passengers to have hand sanitizer in quantities larger than 3 ounces ounces in their carry-on luggage.
There are scores of other examples from around the country. Many are linked on Twitter by the hashtag #NeverNeeded. More are bound to come.
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In Texas, alcohol industry vehicles can now be used to deliver supplies to grocery stores — one of countless restrictions and regulations that have been swept aside to help deal with the pandemic.
And what is true in the United States is true elsewhere. Writing in the Sunday Times (of London), Mark Littlewood describes some of what is happening in Britain:
A range of [anti-monopoly] laws have been relaxed to allow retailers to pool staff, share distribution depots and delivery vans, and compare data on stock levels. The 5-pence tax on plastic bags is being waived to expedite online orders. Additionally, there has been a liberalization of rules on the hours drivers can work if they are transporting food, key household items, or pharmaceuticals. Permitted daily driving hours have been increased by two, with a commensurate two-hour reduction in enforced rest. Pubs and restaurants, despite being prohibited from serving customers on site [no longer require] a separate permit … to serve [take
out]….
The … sheer scale of the challenge posed by the coronavirus has also led to the removal of red tape to help healthcare workers in their unenviable task. A limit of 16 hours’ work a week on retired professionals returning to work has been lifted. Regulators will also be allowed to fast-track the registration of a range of individuals such as students reaching the end of their training to enable them to operate on the front line. Meaningful steps are also being taken to reduce the administrative paperwork burden on healthcare staff so they can concentrate more of their time on actual treatment….
More liberalization is likely to follow. Bafflingly, only six of the European Union’s 27 countries allow patients to order prescription medicines online. Surely we can expect to see that restriction lifted?
It goes without saying that many government regulations are sensible, prudent, and eminently defensible. But far too many reflect less good judgment than special interest pleading, a desire to keep out competitors, or the age-old hunger of politicians and bureaucrats for power. Overregulation is not a trivial problem.
At the federal level alone, it has been estimated that regulations imposed by government agencies extracts $1.9 trillion a year from manufacturers, vendors, farmers, and consumers. Regulatory overkill is a significant drag on economic growth. All societies require wise and well-crafted regulations, but so much of what the federal behemoth pumps out is onerous and unnecessary. Mandates and restrictions ratchet up inexorably
, often doing little or nothing to improve health, safety, or fairness, while paralyzing entrepreneurs, stifling innovation, and punishing consumers with higher and higher costs. And what is true of federal regulators is no less true at the state and local level.
Excessive red tape is expensive, maddening, and indefensible. Sometimes, as we have been made painfully aware in recent weeks, it can even be deadly. It is one of the silver linings of this awful pandemic that rules and regulations, most of which were never needed in the first place, have been swept to the curb. When the crisis ends, let’s make sure they stay there.
Prayer? Charity? How un-American!
The intolerant atheists at the Freedom From Religion Foundation have been keeping busy.
At this difficult time, tens of millions of Americans have been seeking out ways to maintain their connection to church, prayer, and God — no surprise in a nation whose motto is “In God We Trust” and in which the overwhelming majority of citizens believe in God. Roughly 75 percent of American adults are affiliated with a religion,
according to the Pew Research Center. Among modern Western democracies, the United States has long been the most religious. The Bible was an essential text of the American Revolution. Every state constitution acknowledges God
. US presidents for decades have ended important addresses by invoking God’s blessing on America.
So of course religion has been an important subtheme
during the current pandemic. Worship services and Bible study have moved online. Followers of many religious traditions have joined in praying for an end to the COVID-19 outbreak, for the suffering of the sick to be eased, and for doctors and scientists to be aided in finding a cure. At the same time, innumerable religious institutions have ramped up their charitable activities. Many religious organizations have raised money to provide respirators, disinfection supplies, and food to communities most in need of help.
Meanwhile, the anti-faith hardliners at the Freedom From Religion Foundation have continued to do what they deem important: throwing tantrums whenever a public official encourages prayer, fasting, or religious charity.
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Churches, synagogues, and mosques have been shuttered by the coronavirus, but prayer, charity, and social networks are thriving.
They were particularly busy last week.
The foundation fumed when Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt designated March 26 as a “Statewide Day of Prayer” and quoted the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament in urging “Oklahomans of all faiths and religious backgrounds to join together in prayer for all those affected by COVID-19, including our health care professionals on the front lines and those who have suffered harm or lost loved ones.” It fired off a four-page letter
to the governor’s office, declaring that his proclamation “constitutes an inappropriate endorsement of religion by the highest executive in the state.” By calling on Oklahomans to pray, it admonished, “you abridge your duty to remain neutral and to respect the freedom of conscience of all your citizens.”
The atheist group had issued a similar rebuke to the governors of Utah and of South Carolina a couple days earlier. And on March 23, the FFRF had flipped out over what it called “Vice President Mike Pence’s call to the American people to shower churches with their generosity.”
What Pence had said, during a March 21 coronavirus briefing at the White House, was that even if Americans can’t attend services during the pandemic, they should still give charity through their church, “because all the ministries are continuing to play a vital role in our communities.” According to the FFRF, that was outrageous.
No American officials, it declared, “should lend the power and prestige of their office to a particular church or to religion in general.” For Pence to encourage Americans to donate to their church was “an egregious betrayal of the country’s founding principles.”
Rubbish.
There is not the slightest reason an elected official cannot urge Americans to give generously to charity. Far from being a “betrayal” of American principles, support for religion is as American as a Fourth of July parade. The First Amendment explicitly protects the “free exercise” of religion. Nothing in American law or tradition supports the idea that presidents and vice presidents — who take their inaugural oath on a Bible and conclude with “so help me God” — must never be heard to encourage or uphold faith.
America’s greatest presidents repeatedly — sometimes emphatically — made references to religion. At times of trouble, George Washington issued public calls for fasting and prayer, and he stressed the importance of religion in his Farewell Address. Abraham Lincoln’s eloquent Second Inaugural is ardent in addressing God’s role in the Civil War.
Nothing is more normal than the invocation of God in our public life. Whether the Freedom From Religion Foundation likes it or not, politics and religion are not strangers in America. Faith and freedom go together in our society, as we aspire, however imperfectly, to become one nation under God, with liberty and justice for all.
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