EDITORIAL: Government’s incompetence keeps reaching new lows

From undistributed rental aid to Kabul to soaring inflation, the government has an unmatched record of incompetence.

On Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the CDC’s eviction ban. The ruling itself was unsurprising. Even President Joe Biden admitted that this latest extension of the eviction moratorium was unlikely to withstand judicial scrutiny before doing it anyway.

In June, Justice Brett Kavanaugh cast the swing vote to leave in place the moratorium, acknowledging the constitutionally dubious reasoning behind the policy, but allowing that it was set to expire at the end of July anyway. A few more weeks would “allow for additional and more orderly distribution of the congressionally appropriated rental assistance funds,” he wrote.

Mr. Biden responded by unilaterally extending the ban into October, both caving to progressive pressure and giving a Bronx cheer to the Supreme Court. But the justices have now had the predictable last word.

Justice Kavanaugh was correct that there was plenty of money to distribute. Throughout the course of the pandemic, Congress allocated more than $46 billion for rental assistance. Congress passed the first round of funding last December, with additional money coming in March.

But he was wrong that the few more weeks would lead to a “more orderly distribution” of funds.

As The New York Times recently reported, just $1.7 billion went out the door in July. So far, just more than $5 billion has been distributed. That’s around 11 percent of the available money. Even extending the eviction moratorium for two more months wouldn’t have helped much, White House officials acknowledged, per the Times.

What a perfect encapsulation of government in today’s America. Congress spends our children and grandchildren’s money to help people facing eviction. Then it’s able to distribute the money only to a handful of those who are supposed to benefit.

Part of the problem is that running the actual government isn’t like playing SimCity. In that old computer game, you pressed a few buttons and out popped a road or power plant. Too easy. In real life, handing out money is a logistical nightmare because fraudsters lurk among those who genuinely need help.

Just look at the unemployment insurance nightmare suffered by so many Nevadans. One of the reasons for the many delays was a fear of fraud. In June 2020, the Labor Department said that a conservative estimate of unemployment insurance fraud was $26 billion.

Despite that reality, the Biden administration’s solution to the rental assistance program’s sluggishness was lowering standards. It urged states and local governments to lower application requirements. That included allowing applicants to self-certify details about their finances. What could go wrong?

Nor is this a unique example of the government’s incompetence. During the early days of the coronavirus, the CDC decided not to use the test kit offered by the World Health Organization. Instead, CDC officials made their own, but some of those kits turned out to be faulty. Then the agency required hospitals to send virus samples to select labs. Those results had to be confirmed by the CDC’s central lab. This bottleneck greatly limited the number of people who could be tested.

But the foul-ups just keep coming.

It’s hard to imagine a more dramatic — and tragic — display of incompetence than what has occurred in Kabul over the past few weeks. After Mr. Biden ordered U.S. troops to withdraw, thousands of ISIS-K prisoners were set free, per the Pentagon. Now, ISIS-K has claimed responsibility for the suicide bombing that killed at least 13 U.S. service members and more than 150 others.

Last week, White House press secretary Jen Psaki even acknowledged that the White House can’t guarantee all U.S. citizens will be able to leave Afghanistan.

Finally, the economy has rebounded nicely from the coronavirus shutdowns, but there are warning signs there as well. Inflation just hit a 30-year high. Housing prices and rents keep soaring. No one wants to talk about it, but the national debt is a looming crisis.

Politicians are great at making promises and throwing around money. But it’s time for the American public to set naivete aside and recognize reality. Nothing is truly free. And if you’re waiting for the federal government to come to the rescue, you’re likely to be lonelier than the Maytag repairman.