The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says that it “has a unique mission—to save lives by deploying effective, proven strategies to prevent, detect, and rapidly respond to disease outbreaks at their source.”

COVID-19 is wreaking havoc on American jobs. State shutdowns and social distancing have resulted in 26 million people being laid off and furloughed.

President Trump reignited a feud last week when he said the “Postal Service is a joke because they’re handing out packages for Amazon and other internet companies and every time they bring a package, they lose money on it.”

Governments often fail because they tend not to learn lessons.

The COVID-19 pandemic has pushed the economy into a deep recession. The crisis will also create lasting economic damage from the jump in debt as a result of higher federal spending and lower federal revenues.

The economic crisis has highlighted reckless fiscal policies and a lack of foresight by our political leaders.

The economics news is dismal with reports every day of shutdowns, layoffs, and furloughs. More than 16 million Americans have been thrown out of work so far, and we have entered the worst downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

The White House and FEMA are swooping in to grab masks, thermometers, and other items in a secretive process with apparently little recourse.

Federalism should underpin disaster preparation and response, and emergency supply systems should be mainly based on distributed stockpiling, markets, and horizontal cooperation.

Disasters usually prompt calls for a top‐down response led by the Commander in Chief and guided by the supposedly higher expertise in Washington.