Brit Hume shines damning light on bureaucratic red tape, ‘regulatory state’ holding up crucial production

(Image: Fox News screenshot)

Fox News senior political analyst Brit Hume shared an eye-opening thread on the government bureaucracy that is impeding a faster delivery of masks and respirators to combat the coronavirus outbreak.

As President Donald Trump continues to get blamed by critics for everything from the lack of availability of testing kits to the dearth of surgical masks and respirators, Hume tweeted a link Thursday to a thread on “the regulatory state” by author and historian Paul Matzko.

“The Covid 19 emergency meets the regulatory state. The regulatory state is winning,” Hume wrote.

“Wondered why it’s been so hard to ramp up production of surgical masks and respirators? Why haven’t private companies flooded into the market to meet peak demand?” Matzko wrote in the first of a series of tweets Wednesday addressing the shortage of personal protective equipment in the wake of the global pandemic.

“Because they are regulated medical devices & new versions require FDA approval which can take months to obtain,” he continued as he pulled back the curtain on how long-standing regulations are to blame for the problems, not – to the disappointment of the left – Trump himself.

He shared the cumbersome application process needed to be completed before the much-needed masks could even be marketed.

“Let’s say that you’re a garment manufacturer in NYC, but, of course, retail sales are down, so you’re looking for another revenue stream. Why not make surgical masks, keeping your doors open, employees employed, and saving lives?” Matzko tweeted. “It’s a win-win-win!”

“But how long do you think it would take you to jump through these hurdles, and do you think someone without an army of regulatory compliance officers would be reasonably able to do so at all?” he asked before revealing how the federal bureaucracy ends up getting in the way.

“I could go on and on,” Matzko wrote, and thankfully did not, noting how it would be near impossible for a company to “jump through these hurdles” and meet the critical need facing the nation in the grip of COVID-19 which has infected nearly 70,000 people in the U.S. so far.

With all that is at stake, the FDA “should waive its surgical mask/respirator regulations for the duration,” Matzko tweeted.

He noted that the current situation leaves Americans thinking that the shortage of supplies is a “market failure,” and thus, a Trump failure, while “it is anything but.”

Matzko argued that the government agency’s heavy-handed rules are exactly what is behind the current problem.

And Democrats like Senators Brian Schatz of Hawaii and Chris Murphy of Connecticut continue to argue for the federal government to take over the medical supply chain.

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