Just two weeks ago, British Prime Minister David Cameron expressed regret for breaking election pledges on child benefits and university fees. The Conservative-Liberal Democrats coalition had recently announced the end to universality of child benefit welfare programmes, meaning that higher- and even middle-income families will soon be excluded from these benefits.
The surprising thing is not that this happened at all, but that it even got reported in the first place. Politicians routinely break their election promises. Across the Atlantic, President Obama has been accused of not fulfilling what he had promised on the campaign trail in 2008. According to politifact.com, he has broken his promise to end income tax for seniors making less than $50,000, among other things. One reason for the low Democratic voter turnout for the mid-terms was voter disillusionment, but also because of Obama’s reneging on key pledges he made as presidential candidate.
Do voters have short-term memories, and if not, do they even care once the promise tends out to be illusory? Does the elected official’s political authority suffer as a result? Probably not, given the fact that most office-holders seem to get away with it. Bryan Caplan, economist at George Mason University, suggests that “voters have misconceptions about the effects of their favorite policies”. As such, politicians promise to enact popular but harmful policies while campaigning, only to quietly jettison them upon attaining office. “Betraying the people” is done not only for their own good, but to increase the politicians’ chances of re-election. For example, for ostensibly pragmatic economic reasons, Obama still has not fulfilled his campaign promise to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement. Doing so during a time of economic weakness might harm US job growth and retard economic growth, and most of the blame would be directed at the President himself.
All this has implications for America’s political and fiscal future. Along the campaign trail leading to this year’s mid-term elections, the GOP had released their much-publicized “Pledge To America”, a conservative agenda promising, among other things, to roll back government spending to pre-stimulus levels, thus saving “at least $100 billion in the first year alone”. As was predicted by pundits, the Republicans then took control of the House of Representatives and shaved the Democratic majority in the Senate to an uncomfortably low margin. Will the Republican tide herald a real change in fiscal spending? Alas, it’s too soon to tell. Regardless, your elected politician will probably let you down in some way or another – now that’s a promise you can take to the bank.
Photo credit: Mirror.co.uk
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