Notes on an Impossible Problem
A few days ago, Sens. Joni Ernst and Tim Kaine published a CNN op-ed pushing new legislation to fight the fentanyl crisis. Their plan, as they explain it, is to a) “classify fentanyl trafficking as a national security threat to the US” and b) “direct the Pentagon to develop a fentanyl-specific counterdrug strategy that includes enhanced cooperation with Mexican defense officials.”
This is all well and good, I suppose. But Ernst and Kaine are not really offering a plan to control the supply of fentanyl crossing the border. They’ve made a plan to make a plan, a plan to demand that a plan ought to happen. And there’s a simple reason for that: coming up with an actual plan to control the fentanyl supply is very hard.
Continue reading the entire piece here at The Causal Fallacy
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Charles Fain Lehman is a fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor of City Journal.
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