Getting Rid of Incentives to Make Short sighted decisions

viclemronny

Mods - This thread seemed to be a little more practical than the political theory forum(more dealing with schools of political thought rather than electoral reform) but if it would be better suited there, please move it.

As we wade through this recession, it seems to me that we are not really addressing the major reasons behind it. Yes, we can say that we understand what happened from an economic point of view, and I believe that it's not fair to say that we do. However, we have not addressed why the economic factors that were under out control were allowed to develop the way they did.

I think it's fair to say that a certain amount of the blame can be laid on short sighted but popular fiscal policy. Tax cuts instead of running large surpluses being the prime example. There were of course other factors, but if we had of had a more prudent fiscal policy, then perhaps, some of the damage could have been mitigated.

The reason for this is of course that elected politicians will have strong incentives to legislate in a popular manner. They know that this will get them re-elected and save their jobs and they know that the average person will not scrutinize their decisions from an objective, long term economic perspective.

The solution I would propose is as follows. Firstly though, this is not intended as an immediate thing. It would require complete reorganization of the electoral and political system which should be done over many years.

Elected TDs should only be allowed to serve one term in office. After this they should be excluded from serving any other popularly elected office. This gets rid of the incentive to make popular but poor decisions.

This presents the issue of getting someone to give up 5 years of their life, that although paid, will leave them jobless afterward. The solution I would propose is to pay them for one extra year, to allow time to gain employment.

This may seem a bad idea, paying politicians for a year when they are not even working. But it would allow us to remove one of the biggest incentives to make imprudent decisions while still leaving enough incentive for people to seek the job.

I post this hear entirely for it to have holes picked in it, to see where it either needs modification(large)/improvement(large) or if it simply completely infeasible.

Permabear

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viclemronny

donegalfella wrote: »

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While I would accept that. Is there really much reason to believe that politicians we elect now are any better equiped than a new comer. There are ministers whose former careers had nothing to do with their briefs at all and who have no greater experience than any other educated professional from a random field.

TDs should not be dealing with local issues either, we have local councilors for that. TDs should be dealing with the governance of the country not whether Joe Bloggs gets his son a passport or gets his planning permission.

The_Honeybadger

viclemronny wrote: »

While I would accept that. Is there really much reason to believe that politicians we elect now are any better equiped than a new comer. There are ministers whose former careers had nothing to do with their briefs at all and who have no greater experience than any other educated professional from a random field.

TDs should not be dealing with local issues either, we have local councilors for that. TDs should be dealing with the governance of the country not whether Joe Bloggs gets his son a passport or gets his planning permission.

Agree that something has to be done about the current system to remove the temptation to make short sighted but popular decisions, look where the Bertie buy em all era got us, but kicking em all out after on term is not the answer. Who could possibly feel qualified to become Taoiseach with no Dail experience for example? I also agree that they should have no dealings with local issues, this would mean we could reduce the number of TD's, leaving only the useful ones in the Dail (I know it probably seem like there are none now). More qualified people than me should surely be able to devise a sytem where it is in the politicians interest to do the best for the country, rather than themselves? This often backfires on them, I wonder did Bertie realise just how much damage his policies were causing in the long term and how he would be remembered?

viclemronny

The Taoiseach part is another hole, yes.

Perhaps there is a possibility of linking ministers pensions to a performance index of their brief? Obviously this would be extremely complicated and there maybe some briefs for which it is not possibly. But surely it merits examination.

The main problem and I think most people will agree is that there is an immediate benefit to a politician for making myopic popular decisions but the negative doesn't affect him/her or at least doesn't kick in till years later and even then only in the form of legacy rather than actual fiscal/welfare implications.

noclue1

interesting idea

your completely correct in the last 15-20years and even before the business cycle was manipulated and aligned to the electoral cycle

Kicking out the politicians after 4 years wouldn't really work.

However while people worried they were giving away power to Brussels under Lisbon i would welcome checks and balances especially those driven by the prudent Germans. While the property bubble was exploding c.1999-2008 an empowered EU might have forced the Irish government to stop fueling the property sector with tax incentives etc.

The_Honeybadger

viclemronny wrote: »

Perhaps there is a possibility of linking ministers pensions to a performance index of their brief? Obviously this would be extremely complicated and there maybe some briefs for which it is not possibly. But surely it merits examination.
.

This would end up just like top civil servant bonuses with everybody getting 100% regardless of performance. What amazes me is that there seems to be no real appetite to change things among the public. Despite all the s**t that has emerged with banks, bribes tribunals etc people still just shrug the shoulders and say "sure what can ya do". Why haven't we gone to Leinster House and thrown them out? If this was any other country this Government would surely be gone by now, why do we tolerate the corruption and disgusting behaviour amongst our elite that has gone on for so long?

Sleepy

A few off the cuff ideas:

• Make terms of office longer and longer term goals become more important.
• Align TD's pay and pensions with economic performance (perhaps a function of GNP?).
• Legislate a minimum period of 9 months between budgets and planned election dates to reduce temptation to buy elections with tax cuts etc.
• Requre a certain number of real world employment as an eligibility requirement for standing for office. Perhaps try to encourage more accomplished members of society to run rather than just party hacks with family connections to history.

viclemronny

Sleepy wrote: »

A few off the cuff ideas:

• Make terms of office longer and longer term goals become more important.
• Align TD's pay and pensions with economic performance (perhaps a function of GNP?).
• Legislate a minimum period of 9 months between budgets and planned election dates to reduce temptation to buy elections with tax cuts etc.
• Requre a certain number of real world employment as an eligibility requirement for standing for office. Perhaps try to encourage more accomplished members of society to run rather than just party hacks with family connections to history.

This is the type of slow steady reform that we need. Of course no system we conceive will be perfect. But perhaps we may be able to disincentive some of the the clientelism.

The point about greater EU pacts is also interesting. The Stability and Growth Pact is where a greater level of authority and power needs to begin.

Someone above claimed that performance indexed pensions would just result in everyone getting the 100% pension. Perhaps the notion of a non national supervisory body, EU in nature obviously, could prevent such a fiasco.

Without wanting to seem like a revolutionary teen, I refuse to believe that there is no better way that the country could be run than the way it currently is.

Taking Germany as an example, what is the difference between them and us? They seem to be much more financially prudent. Granted, there is a greater culture of saving, but even on a governmental level.

It can't be the case that all German citizens have a proper understanding of the economy and the long run unfeasibility of continuous deficit spending.