PBO-costing is a waste of money
HOW DO YOU SHAME THE SHAMELESS? YOU CAN’T. — BRET STEPHENS
The federal Liberals may have failed to deliver on many of their campaign promises, but they’ve done almost exactly as they said they would in at least one area: getting the Parliamentary Budget Office ( PBO) involved in costing future election campaign promises — theirs and those of other political parties.
Jean- Denis Fréchette, the Parliamentary Budget Officer, was never keen on this idea and while he’s now preparing to take on the responsibility for the 2019 federal election — a job he expects to be a “huge challenge” — there is much to recommend his initial reluctance.
Carleton University assistant professor Jennifer Robson identified one of the more substantial practical problems with this policy change in an April Maclean’s article: the deadlines (or lack thereof ).
Starting 120 days before an election, political parties will be able to put in requests with the PBO for cost estimates of campaign promises. The parties will be free to keep those costing requests coming for the entire campaign, even as late as the day before voters go to the polls. That, as Robson wrote, is “absurd” — there’s no way a meaningful estimate can be put together for even a single complex proposal in 24 hours, let alone for several proposals, as could be required.
The symbolic problems are even worse. In a discussion paper before the new policy was passed, Fréchette warned of the proposed PBO- costing that it “risks seriously undermining the PBO’s perceived independence and non-partisanship.” He’s quite right. Involving the PBO in doing the math for partisan campaigns sends a terrible message. Voters may get the impression PBO estimates represent an endorsement of the policies — and therefore the parties — in question. A party that requests more PBO estimates may misleadingly appear to have the PBO’s stronger imprimatur than those that request fewer.
Also, shouldn’t the parties themselves be the ones paying for figuring out the viability of their own policy proposals? Is having taxpayers foot the bill for working out the economics of campaign promises of parties they don’t support a sensible idea?
The Liberals framed PBO-costing as a way to give Canadians “a credible, nonpartisan way to compare each party’s fiscal plans,” but I have to say that I have not noted it to be a common phenomenon for voters to be pining for detailed proof of the economic credibility of political promises.
Voters can’t even agree on whether a future government should run a deficit or cut spending. Will it really matter to them if the precise price tag of a particular policy is a million more or less than the party would claim?
It should also be mentioned that the PBO does not have a magical ability to accurately predict ultimate costs.
Since even economists with advanced degrees differ on the efficacy of Keynesian demand management, it will not be possible for the PBO to calculate the absolute net gains or losses of each political promise — though voters could be forgiven for thinking otherwise, given how the PBO is being presented as an all- knowing arbiter. Voters may forget that looking at the price of a single item on a grocery bill tells you nothing about the shape of the shopper’s overall budget. Or they may remember this, and therefore find the PBO estimates of little value.
The PBO- costing certainly doesn’t seem worth the money. The vast majority of the policies it will spend large amounts of time and cash studying will never be implemented: even if the winning party kept half its promises (which is expecting a lot), half of them would fall away, and all the policies of the non- elected parties would be a complete writeoff.
Granted, a sense that Canadians need government help with everything is pervasive in this country.
But surely if there is one area in which individuals should be counted on to go it alone, it is in exercising their right to choose whom to vote for.
Not only is it unnecessary to have a government entity providing expert advice on how to evaluate campaign pledges, it’s actually quite creepy.
Most voters likely appreciate that this is a costly distraction that will invite untold strategic manipulation by the political parties, while providing no advantage to democracy. The only true beneficiaries I can think of are political pundits, who will have more to argue about on slow news days.
But PBO- costing is now, nevertheless, a go. It would be no surprise if the mess and burden of its implementation were a major theme of the next election.
THE PBO-COSTING CERTAINLY DOESN’T SEEM WORTH THE MONEY.