This is the third part of a four-part essay that examines why conservatives have trouble getting elected and remaining true to their conservative principles. Here are the four parts:
- Societal Succession and the Loss of Frontier Virtues
- The Organized Political Constituency
- The Politician’s Dilemma
- Pivotal Role of Baby Boomers
In the first part we looked at how changing environmental factors, our progression from a frontier to an urban society, have strengthen the role of government institutions. In the second part, we defined and reviewed the role of organized political constituencies. In this, the third part, we will put ourselves in the place of the key player in our government, the politician.
Although we have a democratic government, in practice our society operates as an oligarchy. That is because we have a representative democracy. When the votes are taken that decide most important issues, our elected leaders serve in our place and vote for us. As a result, we have an indirect democracy, and we have key people whose motivations and decisions affect all of us. Because we choose these people, we must understand what motivates our leaders and how they reach their decisions. In the remainder of this particular post, we shall consider the following questions:
- How do we decide our vote?
- What happens after the election?
- Why there is no accountability?
- Why we should pray for our leaders?
How do we decide our vote?
The next time you go to the polls to vote, please ask yourself a question. How did you decide who you are going to vote for? Are you voting for a candidate or against the other candidate(s)? Are you voting to promote the general good or to protect your own special interests?
We often complain that our leaders do not debate the issues; instead, they run negative campaigns. Whose fault is that?
I believe we are just getting exactly what we vote for. We get negative campaigns because we cast negative votes. Instead of promoting a vision for the country, their state, or their local area, politicians run negative campaigns because we vote against the politician we hate the most.
Each of us belongs to organized political constituencies. We identify with noble causes and with the economic interests that serve our needs. We are pro-life or pro-choice. We teach in the public schools, or we think property taxes are already high enough. Because the long commute to work through traffic jams is devastating our personal time, we want more spent on roads, or, as a dedicated social worker, we believe more needs to be spent on social welfare programs.
When we vote based upon our special interests, whatever vision for the future our leaders might offer do not matter. What matters is who threatens our special interests and our cherished beliefs.
During every election, the political candidates posture and smile and attempt to ingratiate themselves with the voters. They kiss babies, make noble statements, and they demonize their opponents. Inevitably, however, candidates for public office make lots of promises. As members of special interest groups, we demand these promises from them.
With the growth of government, our perception of government changes. Instead of seeing government as an institution that provides for justice and the common defense, we see government services. We see the roads we drive on and the schools we send our children to. We receive social security and medicare benefits. We play in government owned parks and recreation facilities, and so forth. So we listen for these promises. If the politician does not promise us what we want to hear, we vote against him.
What happens after the election?
After the election some promises are broken. Most frequently, perhaps, politicians break their promise to not raise our taxes. Politicians have a choice. When they compare the government’s revenues with all the promises they have made, they can break all the other promises they have made or they can raise taxes. They can offend one political constituency or they can offend many others.
Consider, for example, this morning’s article in the Prince William Extra. During the January 18, 2007 School Board meeting, the board received a briefing on the school division’s financial status. As a result of the Flat Tax Rate (see here) proposed by the Prince William Board of County Supervisors (BOCS), the School Board will not receive as large an increase in revenues as they had planned for.
When the county’s financial manager briefed the School Board, they presented a grim picture to both the School Board and to the parents of many children over cable TV. Even though the School Board will still receive more money to spend, the financial managers effectively presented the decrease in funds as a budget cut.
The financial managers are Superintendent Walts’ people. When there is lots of money to spend, it is easier to run the school system. If Superintendent Walts does not have to, he is not going to prioritize school programs in favor of those that are truly needed. That is not going to help him make friends with anybody. The people who Walts answers to, the School Board, are effectively in the same position. Thus the School Board and many parents have been set at odds with the BOCS, and they will campaign ferociously for a higher tax rate.
Why there is no accountability?
It is not fun to be accountable to anyone. So we all seek to avoid accountability. In that respect, our leaders are not different from the rest of us. In order to get elected, they make promises, but they have little control over whether or not they can keep those promise. That is because each of them is one of many. So they avoid accountibility like the plague.
As voters we cannot allow our leaders to escape accountibility for their actions. In fact, our primary responsibility as voters is to hold our leaders accountable. As the Preamable to the Constitution states, we need good government to “establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.” In addition, in this era, we have set up our government as the stewart of much of our nation’s wealth. We have to keep an eye on our pocketbooks.
Unfortunately, we are doing a terrible job of holding our leaders accountable. It begins with the campaign promise. Our politicians promise to give us something at somebody else’s expense. Social Security and Medicare for the old, for example, are paid for by the young. We in Northern Virginia pay far more in taxes than we receive from the rest of the state. That is we subsidize roads and schools elsewhere. In our turn, we have our congressman earmark funds so that we can make road improvements with money from the rest of the country. Thus in process of trying to make other people pay for our goodies, we have been made to pay for other people’s goodies. The overall effect is that of a daisy-chain where each of us is picking the pocket of the person in front of us.
Easy come, easy go. Our leaders make promises. We give them “other people’s money,” and they spend it, and they use it to buy our votes. In the process of buying our votes, much of our money is wasted. That is because the money is spent without any regard to the basic economic principle of supply and demand. In providing the services that people want and would pay for — if they had that choice — our leaders use our money to buy influence with the most powerful organized political constituencies.
Instead of trying to use government to make everybody else pay for what we each want (Socialism in practice), we each need to pay our own freight. Just because the government provides you a service does mean everybody else is obligated to pay for it.
For example, we all need and want expressways. In this era, the obvious solution is “freeways.” The problem with freeways is that when expressways are built for “free,” politicians lose any accountibility for where or how they build them. We buy a pig in a poke. We just give them our money and hope we will get a road we can use.
The obvious alternative is to pay for the services we receive from government when we use them. In the case of expressways, we should demand that our leaders build toll roads. Toll roads have several virtues.
- To collect tolls, toll roads have to be built where they are needed.
- Good road design and implementation results in increased revenues.
- Because they must have limited access, developers hate toll roads. Instead of putting stoplights on “freeways,” toll roads force developers to build their own roads.
- Toll roads can be easily financed with bonds. If tolls are the exclusive means used to pay off the bonds, then the bond holders help to hold politicians accountable.
Why we should pray for our leaders?
When we pray for someone, for little a time we put ourselves in their shoes, and we walk in their place. We see the challenges and the temptations that they see, and we beg for God’s intercession to help them. Imagine what you will see if you pray for our leaders and put yourself in their shoes. Are not many of the moral challenges and the temptations our leaders face are the result of two things: our unreasonable and conflicting demands and the fact fact we do not hold them accountable?
When we tempt someone, we become their devil and in part responsible for their sins. When we do not hold each other accountable, then we miss the second greatest opportunity we have to help each other become better people (the first is the power of our own example).
So I ask that end the end of each day, when you take a moment to pray for your own soul and those of your family and friends, that you take a moment to think of your country and its leaders. Just for moment, put yourself in the place of our leaders and ask God to help them.
Next week this four-part essay will conclude with “Pivotal Role of Baby Boomers.” That section will discuss a unique historical opportunity for change. As the Baby Boomers reach their senior years, will it still be about “me” or will they finally acquire some wisdom?
