What just happened?
A seriously overwrought analogy
Imagine the president of the United States decides that bears present a serious problem to the United States. Bears pry open car doors, rummage through trash, and may or may not shit in the woods. Worst of all, they occasionally kill someone. The president says in a stump speech that because bears are so harmful, we need to kill the bears. This has the backing of several renegade scientists, who at one point were somewhat respected in their profession, but for the last decade have made increasingly unsupported statements about how bears are dangerous. They have always been dangerous. That’s why our American forefathers were right to try to kill every bear that comes within 500 yards of a human. These renegade scientists correctly claim there have always been people in favor of killing all bears. That killing bears will better the nation. They just never had a friend sitting in the Oval Office.
Ecologists and wildlife experts are aghast. They have known for decades that bears, far from being harmful, are an important species. Instead of decreasing the bear population, we would be better off increasing it. The ecosystem services bears provide are high. Even when considering their relations to humans, they are beneficial. Sure, under incredibly rare circumstances a bear will kill a person every now and then, but those damages are dwarfed by the benefits millions of tourists derive every year from seeing bears in National Parks, let alone the value to local ecosystems. Mainstream ecologists admit there have always been some in their profession who want to kill all the bears, but stress this has always been a fringe view. It has been thoroughly disproven and mountains of research show bears are not bad or dangerous. They are good.
It’s all for naught.
The president insists that bears are a serious problem. Not only that, but fixing this problem must be done at the state level. US states have been willfully negligent at killing bears because the states are beholden to a few interest groups like wealthy tourists and foreign companies. As proof, the president points out that there are foreign corporations literally advertising that you can pay for an expensive package tour, travel to the United States, and see bears. This proves that bears are harmful and states have been taking advantage of their citizens to benefit foreign interests. Why, over a hundred years ago we let everyone kill bears. And look how much of a stronger country we were in 1925 compared to 2025. To get states to comply, the president announces that federal funding will be withheld from every state that doesn’t take care of its bear problem immediately.
Now public policy experts are upset. Whether or not bears are good or bad is outside of their purview. Leave that to the wildlife experts. Public policy experts know how state governments work. They know states rely on federal funding for a variety of programs. Some of those programs are effective and efficient, others are worthless, and sure, a few are actively harmful. Targeting the harmful programs might be a good option, but those funding cuts won’t only target the harmful programs. They will prevent states from funding beneficial programs as well. More importantly, even defendable cuts should be forecast in advance so that states can prepare.
Some states breathe a sigh of relief. This policy is senseless, but for a state like Ohio, it isn’t a concern. There is a small number of bears in the state, perhaps 100, but they’ve never been a problem. Compared to states in the Rocky Mountains, Ohio is a blip on the radar. This strange policy might harm other states, but it won’t harm Ohio. Whew.
Then the president announces how bear activity will be determined. It’s hard to measure how many bears are in any one state because they move. Also, bear biologists are known to be products of liberal universities that value ideology over truth. So we can’t trust them or their so-called results. What we do know is bears eat huckleberries. And huckleberry plants don’t move. Thus, the number of huckleberry plants in each state will be used to determine the number of bears. States will have federal funding withheld according to how many bears they have, which will be determined by the prevalence of huckleberry plants.
Now the ecologists are even more upset. Sure bears eat huckleberries, but they eat many other things as well. Many other animals eat huckleberries. Going around the countryside with backhoes digging up huckleberry plants isn’t going to solve the bear problem. There is no bear problem, and even if there was a bear problem, and even if destroying all the huckleberry plants would solve the non-existent bear problem, it still wouldn’t be worth it. Destroying all those huckleberry plants is going to cause more damage than even the anti-bear people in the White House claim the bears are causing. Ecologists are against the program with near unanimity. The president is unmoved.
This policy means some states will suffer more than others. It turns out that Ohio, while lacking in bears, has a decent amount of eastern huckleberry. So they will lose a lot of money. All of a sudden policymakers in Columbus, who thought they were safe because there aren’t many bears in Ohio, realize they are going to be affected. Meanwhile, states like Utah have been granted a stay of execution. They have a lot of bears. Everyone knows they have a lot of bears. But they don’t have much huckleberry, so they will keep most of their federal money. States like Iowa, which has neither bear nor huckleberry, watch the whole thing with detached anxiety.
Then Iowa finds out that the president has decided even places like the Hawkeye state, which have huckleberry plants or any bears, must still be hurting their citizens in some way. Every state must be ignoring its citizens, so every state will have federal money withheld. Thus, even states like Iowa will lose out on federal money. Iowa won’t be punished as much as states like Ohio, which will have significantly more withheld. And Iowa’s punishment will be nothing compared to what states like Washington, which has a ton of huckleberry and bear, are going to go through. All states, however, will have some funding cut. Except for Delaware, for reasons unknown. Now even some of the people in the anti-bear camp are confused. They know that bears are a real problem, and though digging up huckleberry plants probably won’t solve the problem, it’s a first step to getting rid of bears. Punishing places like Iowa, which eradicated its bears decades ago, makes no sense, even for those who think bears are a problem.
The White House, however, holds firm. The president’s inner cadre admits the anti-bear plan may cause problems in the short term. Businesses will become less competitive, employees will be laid off, and consumers will have less money as the decreased funding filters through the economy. The president himself admits this will happen, but not to worry about it for two reasons. First, since he is generous, states will not have the full value of the harm they are inflicting on their citizens withheld. For states that cost their citizens $100 million in bear-related damages, only $50 million in federal funding will be withheld. So in reality it’s a fair offer. Second, in the long term, states will come around to the idea that they have to kill all their bears. Once this happens, the economy will not only recover but will be stronger as a result. After all, everyday, hardworking, middle-class Americans won’t have to worry about being mauled anymore.
That’s what just happened.