How Germans Went from Mocking America's Decentralized Pandemic Approach to Envying It

"A world power embarrassing itself." That was how Germany's largest newspaper characterized America's decentralized approach to COVID-19 last year. (What a difference a year makes.)

Source: How Germans Went from Mocking America's Decentralized Pandemic Approach to Envying It

Even though the remnants of Federalism in the U.S. seem to be slowly fading away, there is still enough of it left to provide some advantages on occasion. The larger the bureaucracy, the more inefficient it tends to be so it shouldn't be a surprise that when a country tries to manage things from the top down then things are not going to move along at a particularly fast clip. At least in the U.S., 50 smaller governments could manage their own affairs when it came to certain COVID decisions.

In addition to being more efficient overall, having multiple solutions allows us to see what works best. If one state chooses a set of laws or procedures or whatever and it doesn't work out so well, then they can adapt by looking at what their better performing neighbors might be doing. And if a state screws things up, at least it only screws things up for those in that state. If a country screws things up then everyone is screwed. Local government is better. Less government is better.