Expediency over Logic

So a little while back I wrote an entry titled My Child Your Taxes where I discussed the government’s decision to cut funding for early childhood education. I think their decision at that time was rational based on the likely economic benefit versus the cost to a government that is struggling to balance its books.

So yesterday it was disappointing to hear that the government has reversed its decision and is now going to continue to fund this sector at the current levels.

So what happened? Clearly in the intervening months the facts of the matter didn’t change, the need for this type of middle class welfare continues to be suspect, the economic benefit is still low to nil and the government certainly hasn’t become any wealthier in fact with the current state of the world it is probably looking at being poorer.

Clearly the vested interest lobby groups (ok that is clearly emotive and redundant language all lobby groups have a vested interest by definition) have done their work and succeeded in applying sufficient political pressure in an election year so that the relevant politicians have caved in.

Is this what we pay these people for? To take the path of least resistance. Isn’t caving in to a lobby group a form of Might is Right. You see given that the decision had been made and was logical people who agreed with the decision would not have felt the need to make their feelings known, therefore this argument becomes completely one sided as the politicians only hear the lobby group side.

And so what any way, if I lobbied for free ice cream on Fridays no matter how many people I could round up to support the proposal it still wouldn’t be a good idea. Any sensible leader at any level would be able to say no to such a request as it is fairly obvious that this is unlikely to produce any real benefit, other than the obvious short term ones of enjoying the ice cream. If the Ice Cream manufacturers came out in favour of the idea on the basis that this would increase employment in their sector and lead to a robust industry that would be the envy of the world. Would that help the argument? Again clearly not as we could see fairly readily that we were just providing a government subsidy in the form of a transfer from tax payers to ice cream manufacturers. And finally just because it would make the politicians popular (everyone likes “free” stuff after all) that wouldn’t make it good as again we could all see that it was really a bribe type of an idea from a political angle.

But this is exactly what has happened with the exception of the ice cream idea doesn’t have a “vulnerable group” to support. As an aside I am a bit over hearing about vulnerable groups, probably because I am never in one, which in one way is a good thing for me but as far as I can tell most people are. We have children no matter how rich and spoilt are always referred to as vulnerable if you cut government spending directed at them. Then there are the old (any one over 65 despite vast evidence to the contrary that most of these folk are anything but “old”) The sick, the disabled, youth, the unemployed, solo mums, working mums, women in general, low paid workers, any ethnic group etc If you want to be a successful lobby group you need to have some “vulnerable” people to support which is relatively easy because with a bit of PR effort anyone can become one.

And at the end of the day so what, leaders should lead for the good of the total community they were elected to represent, not cave into people demanding free ice creams.