Political Promises

[bedub1]

Is there even any reason to believe anything a politician ever says? Is it just assumed that they are lying sacks of shit that will say anything to get elected? I just saw this headline:

Romney promises energy independence by 2020

He's not in a position to promise that. If he breaks his promise, do we get to break his neck?

Should politicians be held accountable for what they say? If they lie, should they be fired?

[bedub1]

Should the politicians be sworn in court-room style prior to national televised debates? Should liars be arrested and charged with perjury?

[thegreekdog]

Is there even any reason to believe anything a politician ever says? Is it just assumed that they are lying sacks of shit that will say anything to get elected? I just saw this headline:

Romney promises energy independence by 2020

He's not in a position to promise that. If he breaks his promise, do we get to break his neck?

Should politicians be held accountable for what they say? If they lie, should they be fired?

I saw a video a few years ago (maybe from the Daily Show) that involves clips from every president since Eisenhower promising energy independence by a certain date. It's rather funny and sad.

[tzor]

Is there even any reason to believe anything a politician ever says?

Although Reagan's words were directed to the Soviets, they too should be applied to all politicians.

"Trust but verify."

And if anyone doesn't deliver on promises you expect them to follow ... throw the bum out! PERIOD END.

[/]

Is there even any reason to believe anything a politician ever says? Is it just assumed that they are lying sacks of shit that will say anything to get elected? I just saw this headline:

Romney promises energy independence by 2020

He's not in a position to promise that. If he breaks his promise, do we get to break his neck?

Should politicians be held accountable for what they say? If they lie, should they be fired?

I saw a video a few years ago (maybe from the Daily Show) that involves clips from every president since Eisenhower promising energy independence by a certain date. It's rather funny and sad.

I remember that one.
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-j ... ent-future
The thing about our system is, politicians can't "promise" nearly anything as a truth, the power of checks and balances is more designed to make sure nothing changes rather than streamline changes.
The best a president can honestly promise is what progresses they will veto, and who wants to hear that?
All in all, though the president has an important bully pulpit to bring issues up, for people who really want change, it's best to focus on local politics, tell your congresspeople and senators what you want done, organize petitions and make sure it's clear what the people support.


That said, I do think lying politicians and all other forms of corruption should be ousted, some have abused their powers and the trust of the citizens, or are just plain useless, but without a higher authority (or the voters/media) to hold them accountable, they simply remain in office out of apathy and ignorance for decade upon decade.

[TDK]

Our politicians laugh at us behind our backs because we keep voting them in year after year. They need a REAL protest movement to keep them honest (if you think

[BigBallinStalin]

Is there even any reason to believe anything a politician ever says?

Although Reagan's words were directed to the Soviets, they too should be applied to all politicians.

"Trust but verify."

And if anyone doesn't deliver on promises you expect them to follow ... throw the bum out! PERIOD END.

That's not effective.

(1) It doesn't correct the poor policies which were already implemented

(2) The logrolling will still continue with the newly elected politician.

(3) Failure to deliver on promises can always be blamed on others, so the politician can dishonestly argue his way outta this.

(4) Promises come in a package whose appeal garners the support of different voter markets, some of which criss-cross on various promises from the whole package. This means that if you break one promise, the constituents may still support you because you're still promising other packages.

(4b) Or you can break a promise, but it doesn't matter if you lose constituent support because you no longer need them.


Conclusion: "THROW THE BUM OUT" doesn't work.

[Maugena]

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-june-16-2010/an-energy-independent-future

Thank you thank you thank you thank you.

Is there even any reason to believe anything a politician ever says?

Although Reagan's words were directed to the Soviets, they too should be applied to all politicians.

"Trust but verify."

And if anyone doesn't deliver on promises you expect them to follow ... throw the bum out! PERIOD END.

That's not effective.

(1) It doesn't correct the poor policies which were already implemented

(2) The logrolling will still continue with the newly elected politician.

(3) Failure to deliver on promises can always be blamed on others, so the politician can dishonestly argue his way outta this.

(4) Promises come in a package whose appeal garners the support of different voter markets, some of which criss-cross on various promises from the whole package. This means that if you break one promise, the constituents may still support you because you're still promising other packages.

(4b) Or you can break a promise, but it doesn't matter if you lose constituent support because you no longer need them.


Conclusion: "THROW THE BUM OUT" doesn't work.

The main problem I see with our system is this:
How can you fulfill a long-term promise if you can't stay in power long enough to fulfill it?

Though it does help us prevent a dictatorship by having limited terms...
DILEMMA.

[BigBallinStalin]

The problem is that politicians aren't geared toward factoring the costs and benefits of long-term solutions. This institutional problem of incentives leads to a situation where politicians don't have to fulfill long-term promises--even if they're in power for > 2 or >4 years because...

(1) they fight over votes in the short-term (every 2 to 4 years)

(2) they can shift the blame of the long-term costs on others (politicians, bureaucrats, individuals within the market) while shifting credit to themselves for short-term gains to their interest groups (donators/contributors) and select groups of constituents (e.g. union workers, welfare recipients--old and/or young depending on the politicians, Social security recipients, etc.).

(3) Voters are "rationally ignorant."

(4) Concentrated benefits, dispersed costs. (see: this and this

(5) there's more, but my MB would not offset the MC at this point.


Rarely, but sometimes, dictatorships have shown to be better than the alternative. It's rare though. Besides, according to The Dictator's Handbook (p. 1-10, I forget) the current political system provides a greater advantage to incumbent politicians compared to the challengers, so technically, they don't have limited terms. Many incumbent senators and congressmembers have long terms, yet they don't "fulfill long-term promises." Why not? Because it isn't politically profitable to do so.

[BigBallinStalin]

This knowledge and incentive problem is inherent with liberal democracies, and both the government and the voting public face these problems--albeit the knowledge and incentive problems of politicians differs from those of the bureaucrats and of the non-government types. Currently I haven't been able to think of any solutions--other than, significantly curbing the power of politicians and monopolized bureaucracies over the economic decision-making of non-government agents (you and me, and pretty much everyone else).

Of course, people don't like the sound of shifting toward relatively freer markets and more limited government mainly because they don't understand free markets, economics, public choice, new institutional economics, etc., and the above mentioned problems of liberal democracies. Furthermore, they can be rationally ignorant in doing so which further compounds the problem.

[thegreekdog]

Maybe we should just do a dictatorship with revolutions every few years.

So, Person X is the dictator. He/she rules for 22 years and when things get bad and he/she can't get the job done, out come the guns and whatnot; Person X is overthrown and Person Z is installed. Might make things interesting. Also might make this forum full of Pedronicus graffiti threads and pimpdave religion threads.

[tzor]

There is a fundamental flaw in the general line of argument. If a people, who are promised B, do not verify that B was delivered or who do verify that B was not delivered and in either case still vote for that person, then they deserve what they get. This is the fundamental principle of, not just a democracy, but democratic goverment; the "consent" of the people.

This is a fundamental truth and no broken utopian claptrap would ever replace it (indeed any utopian claptrap only makes the matter worse); eternal viligance is the price of liberty. If you do not pay that, you don't get it. PERIOD END (FULL STOP EVEN).

[thegreekdog]

I've studied the voter tendencies of my parents (locally, statewide, and nationwide). My dad is a Republican-leaning Liberatarian type (more socially conservative than me and yet more crazy libertarian than me in some things). My mom is straight up conservative Republican. I do not recall my parents ever voting for someone because of a promise he or she made... except on a local level. My mom doesn't support Mitt Romney because he's promising energy independence. She supports Romney because he's a Republican and Republicans stand for the things she believes the government should do and not do.

I wonder how many others are like that. I'm not so much I think. I like to look at political record, ideas the politician may have, etc. But I also look at political party. I'm not sure political party affiliation influences my decision that much, although I have to be honest and say I've never voted for a Democrat.

I agree with tzor and BBS on the other stuff.

[BigBallinStalin]

There is a fundamental flaw in the general line of argument. If a people, who are promised B, do not verify that B was delivered or who do verify that B was not delivered and in either case still vote for that person, then they deserve what they get. This is the fundamental principle of, not just a democracy, but democratic goverment; the "consent" of the people.

This is a fundamental truth and no broken utopian claptrap would ever replace it (indeed any utopian claptrap only makes the matter worse); eternal viligance is the price of liberty. If you do not pay that, you don't get it. PERIOD END (FULL STOP EVEN).

That may work, but there are legitimate and illegitimate criticisms in favor of being unable to implement previous promises, so...

In one scenario where the politician is full of it, then your criticism applies, but...

in other scenarios where the politician sincerely can't implement his promised policies for legitimate reasons, then your criticism shouldn't apply.


But there's the bigger problem of transparency for evaluating political performance and the lack of knowledge regarding the actual sincerity of a politician.

[BigBallinStalin]

I've studied the voter tendencies of my parents (locally, statewide, and nationwide). My dad is a Republican-leaning Liberatarian type (more socially conservative than me and yet more crazy libertarian than me in some things). My mom is straight up conservative Republican. I do not recall my parents ever voting for someone because of a promise he or she made... except on a local level. My mom doesn't support Mitt Romney because he's promising energy independence. She supports Romney because he's a Republican and Republicans stand for the things she believes the government should do and not do.

I wonder how many others are like that. I'm not so much I think. I like to look at political record, ideas the politician may have, etc. But I also look at political party. I'm not sure political party affiliation influences my decision that much, although I have to be honest and say I've never voted for a Democrat.

I agree with tzor and BBS on the other stuff.

Your parents' voting behavior is a great example of rational ignorance. Instead of (1) spending additional time educating themselves on the relevant issues and evaluating politician A, B, and C, they choose to (2) vote by Party, which allows them more spent time elsewhere, thus depriving themselves of that knowledge.

The balance between (1) and (2) is on the margin, so I'm not saying that your parents are totally ignorant on these matters. I'm only saying that they appear to shift more to #2 instead of #1.

[thegreekdog]

I've studied the voter tendencies of my parents (locally, statewide, and nationwide). My dad is a Republican-leaning Liberatarian type (more socially conservative than me and yet more crazy libertarian than me in some things). My mom is straight up conservative Republican. I do not recall my parents ever voting for someone because of a promise he or she made... except on a local level. My mom doesn't support Mitt Romney because he's promising energy independence. She supports Romney because he's a Republican and Republicans stand for the things she believes the government should do and not do.

I wonder how many others are like that. I'm not so much I think. I like to look at political record, ideas the politician may have, etc. But I also look at political party. I'm not sure political party affiliation influences my decision that much, although I have to be honest and say I've never voted for a Democrat.

I agree with tzor and BBS on the other stuff.

Your parents' voting behavior is a great example of rational ignorance. Instead of (1) spending additional time educating themselves on the relevant issues and evaluating politician A, B, and C, they choose to (2) vote by Party, which allows them more spent time elsewhere, thus depriving themselves of that knowledge.

The balance between (1) and (2) is on the margin, so I'm not saying that your parents are totally ignorant on these matters. I'm only saying that they appear to shift more to #2 instead of #1.

It's interesting, because my parents (especially my mom) listens to conservative talk radio exclusively, which indicates an interest in "the issues" but does not indicate an interest in seeing things from different perspective or getting facts about the issues. My dad is a little different in that he is willing to and will listen to differing arguments. As he gets older, however, he becomes more and more anti-government regardless of who is in power. When Chris Christie was elected governor of New Jersey, to much fanfare (including from me), he famously (in my family) said "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss."

[BigBallinStalin]

Maybe he expects more, but is disappointed to a larger to degree.

He's probably seen many previous Chris Christie-esque politicians, and after seeing that they're no different, he's no longer impressed. Or maybe he's just a crazy libertarian.

[tzor]

Your parents' voting behavior is a great example of rational ignorance. Instead of (1) spending additional time educating themselves on the relevant issues and evaluating politician A, B, and C, they choose to (2) vote by Party, which allows them more spent time elsewhere, thus depriving themselves of that knowledge.

For the most part, unless you are dealing with significant independents or you are in New York where a person can run on multiple party liines, the biggest decision you need to make is at the primary of your political party. With the current political situation in the United States, there is enough significant differences between the two parties in that it almost generally comes down to a party line decision. The most moderate candidates will still be persuaded by their party's WHIPS to get them to go with the general party platform.

[Gillipig]

Is there even any reason to believe anything a politician ever says? Is it just assumed that they are lying sacks of shit that will say anything to get elected? I just saw this headline:

Romney promises energy independence by 2020

He's not in a position to promise that. If he breaks his promise, do we get to break his neck?

Should politicians be held accountable for what they say? If they lie, should they be fired?

Yes! Otherwise what's the point of promises et all?
I mean from our point of view. From a politicians point of view, promises is just things you say to get stupid people to vote for you.