The Airborne Version of the Post Office/​Department of Motor Vehicles

Don Boudreaux's Cafe Hayek Blog is always worth reading, but his recent complaint about the snail-like pace of passport control struck a raw nerve since I also travel frequently. Don makes the point that it is foolish for people to want government to take over health care when it is so incompetent at everything it does. That is a very valid point, but it understates the case. Passport control (and also security screening) should be incredibly simple. Data on flight schedules and passenger density is easily available. Yet somehow the bureaucrats are incapable of having staff on duty during peak times. So if this relatively easy task is beyond the ability of the bureaucracy, then something more complex like health care surely will turn into a disaster when placed in the hands of government:

The reason we missed our flight is that nearly 50 minutes of our time after landing was consumed by waiting in a long and slow-moving line to clear passport control.  At that terminal on Friday evening, the TSA had only three agents to service the line of U.S. citizens returning from abroad.  Three.  That's it.  Most of the passport-control-agent booths stood empty.