James Ostrowski

63 Newport Ave. (716) 435-8918

Buffalo, New York 14216 jamesmostrowski@icloud.com

April 11, 2020

President Donald Trump
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Governor Andrew Cuomo

NYS Capitol Building
Albany, NY 12224

Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz

95 Franklin St.
Buffalo, New York 14202

Re: The need for mass testing for the Coronavirus

“For want of a nail a kingdom was lost.”

--Ben Franklin

Greetings:

I write to you today as a citizen, father, husband, attorney for 35 years and policy analyst
for 40 years who has written about many complex policy issues including some that bear on the
current crisis. My studies have been published by several bar associations, the Cato Institute, the
Hoover Institution and Notre Dame Law School.

I know the odds are this letter will be ignored but, given the dire situation my country is
in, I feel compelled to try.

I have studied this crisis closely from Day 1 and took it very seriously. On January 28th, I
texted my family: “time to take stock of goggles, face masks and rubber gloves . . . I operate on
the assumption that neither the government nor the corporate media will tell us the truth.” At the
time, the Democratic Party and mainstream media were completely obsessed with a frivolous
impeachment proceeding. (See my, Impeachment in a Dummies, LewRockwell.com, November
25, 2019.) Now, they blame President Trump for not doing things they didn’t do themselves
because they were impeaching him!
President Donald Trump
Governor Andrew Cuomo
Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz
April 11, 2020
Page two

This crisis is the result of major structural changes in government over the last one
hundred years that have centralized power and money in the hands of small numbers of people in
Washington, D. C. and in state capitals. These officials promised to keep us safe from things
like epidemics, but when it came down to crunch time, all that centralized power and money
failed and gave us the worst crisis we have faced in a hundred years. Einstein said, “We can not
solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them.”

The government has basically shut down the economy and tossed out concepts of liberty
that took many centuries to develop. Yet, these draconian measures and destruction of the
economy which threaten civil unrest have not worked.

The government has had free rein to deal with this crisis and it has used its favored tool,
force and coercion to the utmost and they are now saying that, after three months where they
were pretty much allowed to do whatever they want, the nationwide lockdown will only continue
and things may get worse before they get better.

This entire mess was the product of failed government policies that violate liberty. First,
the Chinese government suppressed free speech of medical whistleblowers there and allowed the
disease to spread. Second, our own government, which has absolute control over the channels of
international travel, utterly failed to prevent the virus from entering our country. Once it entered
the country, the next line of defense should have been mass testing as they did in South Korea
and in the town of Vo, Italy, where such testing worked.

Our last line of defense, our 75% socialized health care industry, in spite of heroic work
by front line nurses and doctors, who face combat-level casualties themselves from the virus, has
not been able to figure out how to cure the sick and are overwhelmed with cases and, given their
highly regulated, monopolized and bureaucratized nature, have been too slow to respond to the
increased demand and cannot even keep their medical personnel fully protected with equipment.

So, yes, this is worse than a mere failure of Democratic and Republican politicians to
respond to a crisis. This was and is a massive structural failure of progressive big government,
President Donald Trump
Governor Andrew Cuomo
Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz
April 11, 2020
Page three

which was given gigantic powers over every aspect of this problem from start to finish and was
given trillions of dollars of our money and assured us that if we just gave Washington and
Albany massive centralized power, all would be well. They lied and Americans died!

In the last three months, the myth of progressive big government as the solution to all
human problems has been exploded forever. Progressive big government has the nation in the
worst crisis it has ever faced, which, if not solved in the next few weeks, is likely to cause civil
unrest which could escalate and end very badly.

So, big government’s time is up. You have had your chance and you have made a
catastrophic mess of the situation.

What we need right now is for the government to get out of the way and allow the private
sector to produce, market, and sell on Amazon, tests kits for this virus to allow every American
to be tested so that, as in Korea and Vo Italy, the small number of actively infected can isolate
themselves and be treated while the rest of us get back to work before the country falls apart
entirely because those who shut it down don’t understand the harm they have done.

Let’s start this pilot project right in Erie County, New York as a pilot project for the
entire nation. Why Erie? It is a large diverse county with many vital hospitals that need to be
protected. It is big enough to be a relevant test case but not so large that this is not feasible.

If it works here, and it will work here, the same project should be rolled out quickly
across the nation.

Can we afford it? Can we afford to continue the mess that big government has caused?
This crisis has cost us 10-15 trillion dollars already and perhaps much more than that.
Nationwide testing would cost much, much less.

The current approach has failed and has not stopped illness and death, the destruction of
our economy and the destruction of our liberties which were the product of numerous struggles
over the last 350 years. Our liberty has evaporated very quickly.

We are left with no other choice and for God’s sake, we need to put aside partisanship
and egos and take this proposal seriously. The very future of our republic and our society
depend on it.
President Donald Trump
Governor Andrew Cuomo
Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz
April 11, 2020
Page four

Specifically, as an emergency measure, I urge President Trump to suspend FDA

regulations restricting the production and sale of test kits to allow public and private laboratories
to produce test kits and distribute them to the public.

Give people the option of publicly sharing their test results while protecting their
identities so that geographic and demographic information can be publicly shared and begin to
save lives. A 100% tax credit should be granted to producers, sellers and labs that process the
tests and make them available for free. Those who purchase tests from start-up companies
should also receive a tax credit.

We already know that the system of centralized control over major decisions of health,
treatment and medical technology failed miserably and resulted in the death of thousands. The
CDC’s test failed. The FDA moved slowly and actually obstructed the Seattle Flu Study which
had developed its own test. We need to immediately move from a regulatory/prohibition model
to a rating and certification model where agencies would be free to recommend, rate or certify
but the market—the sum total of all voluntary choices of people, would determine the winner—
just as voters choose the winners of elections!

To sum up: to avoid the continuation of a nationwide lockdown and destruction of the
economy with the possibility of civil unrest in the very near future, a radical choice to deregulate
and decentralize testing needs to be made today. Private, local, public and university labs must
be allowed to mass produce with a 100% tax credit and market and distribute these tests online
via Amazon, Walmart and Target and through the mails and delivery services to every American
who chooses to be tested, with the detailed results made available to the various websites posting
data, minus their personal identity and actual street address of course. Any state laws or
regulations which interfere with testing should also be suspended during the duration of this
crisis. Finally, funds already budgeted for the crisis should be applied to making the widespread
availability of this test possible, and therefore saving the federal government much more money
in the future.

Once positive individuals are identified, they can isolate themselves and seek treatment
so that new infections can be dramatically reduced, and the country can return to normal very
quickly.

The other option, the status quo, is unthinkable.

Let me close with one of my favorite quotes from Shakespeare:

President Donald Trump
Governor Andrew Cuomo
Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz
April 11, 2020
Page five

“I wasted time, and now doth time waste me;

For now hath time made me his numbering clock:
My thoughts are minutes; and with sighs they jar
Their watches on unto mine eyes, the outward watch,
Whereto my finger, like a dial's point,
Is pointing still, in cleansing them from tears.
Now sir, the sound that tells what hour it is
Are clamorous groans, which strike upon my heart,
Which is the bell: so sighs and tears and groans
Show minutes, times, and hours.”

--Richard II

Sincerely,

James Ostrowski