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Bureaucrat Man to the rescue: Spends $50 million to try to fix a problem he created! 

You might not see him regularly, but behind the scenes, there he is. Dr. Health is continuously researching and trying to develop new drugs and treatments to cure people’s ailments.

Sure some of Dr. Health’s discoveries save millions of lives, but what if someone gets hurt? We can’t risk that!

Unable to distinguish between good and evil, Bureaucrat Man leaps to protect the citizens from any and all possible harm, tying Dr. Health up in regulation after regulation… just in case.

Hands tied up as they are, it now takes him an average of 14 years to come out with a new drug or procedure. Innovation in healthcare is in effect strangled.

But remember—innovation is key to all progress. And when we’re talking about progress in healthcare that literally means savings lives.

Though it’s hard to miss what has never existed, it’s become apparent that innovation has slowed.

“Help!” cried the citizens, “we need more innovation!”

So who rushes to save the day yet again? None other than Bureaucrat Man.

“I know how to get Dr. Health to innovate!” he proclaims, dangling a sack of $50 million in front of Dr. Health, “if you come up with something good, I’ll give you this prize!”

(We’re not making this up, it’s from the recently introduced bill in Congress—Health Prizes Rewarding Innovation, Savings, and Effectiveness Act).

So Dr. Health began working furiously, but with his hands and feet still bound up in regulation, he couldn’t actually do things any faster.

The harder he tried, the more frustrated he got. Until he finally gave up once again.

You can’t take fault with Bureaucrat Man’s eagerness to save the day, but then you have to remember that the issue is only there because of him in the first place.

This is far from being an isolated incident.

In fact, whenever Bureaucrat Man swoops in to “fix” a problem, try looking into what caused that problem in the first place.

The financial system is prone to crisis! We need the industry to be regulated more! Right?

Well, with the Federal Reserve as lender of last resort, promising to provide as much liquidity as needed in times of a crisis, it’s no wonder that banks are taking such risks that they end up needing to be bailed out.

The government gives all the wrong incentives.

In 1847, it was government subsidization of revolvers that made them affordable for the general population, leading to their widespread use.

Now people look to the same institution to limit them? What sense does that make?

Then of course just about every instance where the government gets involved militarily is a “defensive response” to a problem that sprung out of previous interventions.

Regardless of how they advertise their actions, bureaucrats and politicians are the creators of problems, not the solvers of them.

Government is a disease masquerading as its own cure.

Earlier this week we announced our candidates for “The Worst Governments of 2014” and let you decide by voting on Facebook and Twitter which one should take the top honor.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the volume of idiocies like the one above, the winner is… drumroll please… The United States!

Now, there was some serious competition for the title. And when you lose out to a country such as Argentina that defaulted yet again this past year and is doing everything possible to make life hard for its population; or a country such as Venezuela that’s experiencing rampant inflation and an acute shortage of basic goods like food and toilet paper… you know you’re in dire straits.

Talking about Venezuela—despite the recent announcement that the US will start to normalize its relations with Cuba, it’s Venezuela actually who I think people should have on their radars.