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‘Auction Politics’ - A Little Perspective
Read more about: Fianna Fail, Government, Irish Politics, Labour Party
What is this horribly ill-defined concept that the FF and PDs are using to talk down Labour’s tax pledge?
There are two points that I think we should bear in mind, especially our journalist friends, before this awful phrase takes pride of place in the election.
1. In Ireland politics has been characterised, and looks likely to be for a long time, by a system of patronage and delivery. In this country more than most and election is an auction at local level. Every five or so years, local candidates promise the sun, moon and stars to constituents. Those in government can often back this up with five years of purchases already in the bag. Local voters have come to expect this treatement and as a strategy it reaches the most voters if the research is to be believed. Auction politics is not new, it is implicit in every party to attempt to promise everything feasible in return for votes.
As it goes, Pat Rabbitte’s proposal on tax is rather unexceptional.
In this country politics doesnt represent major social messages or visions as much as it represents moderately different approaches to dividing up hte public purse and delivering the money to people in the form of services, infrastructure, law and tax back. Auction politics, is the rather common sight of promising to do something with the pie that is perhaps not already being done. Whether Labour’s proposal stands up on those grounds is probably a better way of dealing with the proposal than this “auction politics” retort.
If we are all of a sudden getting ethical, high and mighty with this auction politics thing, then fair enough. But lets not get hypocritical-heaven forbid.
2. Auction politics seems a little rich on a second count coming from a party that has made the attempt to purchase elections into an artform. Preelection budgets in 2000, 2001 were read as attempts to ‘buy’ the electorate and also highly inflationary.
There is also the arguments that the SSIA maturation which coincides with an election, a €180 billion NDP released six months before an election all point to the pervasive use of “auction politics” if such a thing can be said to exist.
So much for McDowell’s opposition to auction politics - he’s now proposed exactly the same measure, and raised it by a 2% higher rate drop.
And if the hole from the drop from 20 to 18% was the size of Texas according to some FF and PD supporters, then how big is this one? And should we measure it in the new metric of a tribunal (with the value a tribunal varying from €300 million to a round €1 billion), 2 maybe 3 tribunals?
I think your right this is getting ridiculous on numbers. How can we cut all over the place and spend like fools?
Its one or the other in this election and i am pretty sure that the economic effect of cut taxes is nearly spent (in the productivity sense-you can always dress up purchasing as economic growth).
The fact that tax cuts are now centre stage shows the positive impact the PDs have had on Irish politics. The idea that tax payers would get back some of their money from a government awash in cash makes perfect sense. Even Labour has come around to this point of view. Only the most ‘Big Government’ types could object to tax cuts.