MSNBC is fretting that the FDA is understaffed:

The FDA is responsible for overseeing the safety of the nation’s foods, drugs, medical devices and consumer products. In each of those areas, the agency is widely regarded as having fallen down on the job.

But its biggest black eye comes from the way the agency has handled its food safety responsibilities.

This is a common refrain from nanny-staters.  If only they had more money.  If only they had more people.  If only they had more regulations.  If only they had more government!  The President himself echoed this line, lamenting that, “at a bare minimum, we should be able to count on our government keeping our kids safe when they eat peanut butter.”  What a sad commentary on his view of American government.  Mr. President, making government responsible for protecting everyone from everything, even down to their peanut butter, cannot reasonably be considered a “bare minimum.”  It’s also not possible.

The President is using the recent episode of contaminated peanut butter to scare people into supporting ever more government.  This is not surprising, as fear is the typical driver of government expansion.  Stoking fear allows the nanny-staters to avoid explaining just why they believe government regulators can accomplish that tiny little task of “keeping [all] our kids safe when they eat peanut butter.”

If there is a government regulatory agency that has ever accomplished the goal of eliminating the danger or risk it was conjured to protect us from, I’ve yet to hear of it.  Government agencies, and the bureaucrats that run them, simply do not have the incentives necessary to compel efficacy.  Instead, government creations inevitably get co-opted by industry leaders, which then utilize the unique power of government force to protect not the consumer, but themselves – from market competition.

Thankfully, effective government is not necessary in situations like this.  Food suppliers have ample incentive to ensure the quality of their product. Poisoning one’s customers is a fast path to bankruptcy.  This is not to say that mistakes will never be made, as they are inevitable.  Private companies that make mistakes pay a high price, as Peanut Corp. of America learned when it filled chapter 7 bankruptcy after poor sanitary conditions at several of its plants lead to an outbreak of salmonella.  This is contrasted with the bigger budgets and greater powers that usually come after government screw ups.  Which incentive structure makes you feel safer?

Furthermore, the presence of government inspectors makes both consumers and producers lazy.  Suppliers rely on government to prove the safety of their products, rather than having to go the extra mile to convince customers themselves, while consumers with unjustified faith in government do less research and investigation of companies and products than they otherwise would.  When this combination of government and consumer apathy inevitably results in lapses, the immediate call is always to exacerbate the situation by giving government more responsibilities, and the individual less.  It’s a cycle of dependence that must be broken, and we can start by acknowledging that not only is the FDA not understaffed, but that even a single staffer is one too many.