@DaAxeMan:
Yes, that's one plausible outcome.
Another is that, having invoked the act, they make bad, poorly-informed decisions which have to be fought or circumvented at the local level in order to achieve the goals. Centralized decision-making can be either a benefit
or a hindrance. We see examples of both in history. But what is it that distinguishes those examples? What is it that makes a centralized decision-maker more likely to help, and less likely to hinder?
We both agree that there is a
role for the Federal government; but what
method, what
structure of authority, ought to
then be employed to ensure that the
result is proper organization rather than hindrance?
That's the question I'm pursuing, and I think it's more important than mere invocation or non-invocation of the act. You can't just blindly trust that a central-decision maker doesn't make mistakes, just
because he's central. On the contrary, the mere
fact of centralization puts the burden of decision-making exactly where the expertise is lacking, the feedbacks from good/bad decisions are barely-felt or non-existent, there's minimal skin-in-the-game, and the communications-delay is greatest. That's one of the reasons (though not the only one) that Soviet-model command economies regularly destroy wealth rather than creating it. Nobody benefits from that (save one's enemies).
The better option is to allow a certain degree of autonomy at the tactical level (while ensuring that everyone is still pursuing the same strategic goals). The role of the central authority, then, is to declare the strategic goal, and then watch how the autonomous tactical units are implementing it and what success they're having, question anything that seems counterproductive or mired-down, and provide support to get roadblocks out of the way. This approach is precisely why our military is more agile than others', and it serves as a force-multiplier. It's also a big part of modern business management, for the same reason.
I notice you continually invoke the example of World War Two. Well, of course I agree. But the
reason I agree is that the strategic goal (get us tanks, planes, helmets) was set at the national level, and then various factory managers and business owners made decisions, on their own initiative, in support of that goal. Who do you think directed the GM assembly line? It wasn't the president's chief-of-staff. William Knudsen did it.
Now, please note two areas where the World War Two analogy breaks down: First, it was a literal, not a metaphorical, war: So levels of hierarchy normally occupied by civilian authorities naturally were occupied by military officers. Secondly, the entire crisis wasn't inside the United States; the fighting was on foreign soil.
For both reasons,
state governors were (quite properly!) less involved. But had there been fighting in Delaware and a supply-chain running through Missouri, either the governors or some parallel
military state-role (e.g. command officers in the Guard, Reserves, or SDFs) would have been
required to manage things in-situ, and the decisions for Delaware would necessarily have differed from those in Missouri. (As they should!) That's a better parallel to our current situation. If we take William Knudsen, a businessman, as our example, someone like Elon Musk might be the modern equivalent. But what if we ask who, for a State Health Department, has authority parallel to Knudsen's authority over GM factories? Wouldn't the answer be...the state governor?
Back up a few years before World War Two, and we have an even better example: FDR's New Deal regulators centralized economic decision making, and the result was a succession of disasters. The Great Depression probably lasted two to four years longer than it needed to, as a result of the ensuing liquidity crisis and the inability of capital investors to plan. The "brain trust" was, even then, far
too ignorant to make correct decisions for managing such a complex, interdependent entity. And yet the economy and supply-chains have become more complex by several orders of magnitude since 1945. How much more inadequate would a White House "brain trust" be, now?
It seems to me that by asking all decisions to be concentrated in the White House team, you're giving the current administration a
lot of credit for
knowing everything. You are, in effect, giving President Trump more credit than
he does! ...which seems...unusual.
See, I don't get
that at all. Can you name one advantage that we'd get by taking a decision that
could have been made by an official who's
more directly-aware of the need, and requiring that decision to be made instead by someone who is
less directly-aware?
Moreover, let's presume for the sake of argument that the current administration did take over -- I'm trying to avoid using the word
usurp -- some decision-making authority that normally is held by the governor of New York, or the mayor of Seattle. I ask you: What would happen next? How would that series of events be depicted (how would the
narrative be
spun, as they say) in news-reporting about it?
Would it help us produce PPE faster? Or would it be a distraction? Would the governor of New York or the mayor of Seattle express happiness about it? Or would they feel legally obligated (or pressured by their constituents) to push back, or even to engage in civil disobedience? You know what modern American politics is like, so game this out a bit. Would there be lawsuits?
Sure there would. I think it'd be a massive waste of time. By
engaging state and local decision-makers, we are currently pursuing the most efficient path to our goal. The alternative would only take us through a spasm of political recrimination, force us to a halt, and then require us to back up, start over, and go the state-based route after all.
So, to sum up: I think the White House team (on this topic, at least) is being smart by not overestimating their own smartness. The current president is prone to boasting; here, he correctly boasts of his policy's humility. Every GOP administration since (I think?) Eisenhower has been accused of fascism. But in this case the administration disappoints its critics by
not invoking what they would surely describe as an
Enabling Act. By avoiding the distractions such a move would predictably generate, the administration probably achieves the same levels of PPE and test production, faster.
That's how it looks to me.
I've made a serious effort, in the above, to avoid the political. But it seems hard to avoid, given the topic. Perhaps after this we should return to the bare-bones stats and models of the advance of the pandemic?
