In the Los Angeles Times, writer Bob Rosenblatt characterized President Obama’s strategy for his health care proposal as “Give me a bunch of money, and we’ll figure out the details later how we are going to manage this thing.” In other words, its key element is vagueness.
The problem with such vagueness is that any informed public policy decision has to be based on specific proposals. Absent concrete details, which is where the devil lurks, no one–including those proposing a “reform”–can judge how it would fare or falter in the real world. So when the President wants approval for a proposal which offers too few details for evaluation, we must ask why.
Like private sector salesmen, politicians strive to present their wares as attractively as possible. Unlike them, however, a politician’s product line consists of claimed consequences of proposals not yet enacted. Further, politicians are unconstrained by truth in advertising laws, which would require that claims be more than misleading half-truths; they have fewer competitors keeping them honest; and they face “customers”–voters– far more ignorant about the merchandise involved than those spending their own money.
These differences from the private sector explain why politicians’ “sales pitches” for their proposals are so vague. However, if vague proposals are the best politicians can offer, they are inadequate.
If rhetoric is unmatched by specifics, there is no reason to believe a policy change will be an improvement, because no reliable way exists to determine whether it will actually accomplish what is promised. Only the details will determine the actual incentives facing the decision-makers involved, which is the only way to forecast the results, including the myriad of unintended consequences from unnoticed aspects. We must remember that, however laudable, goals and promises and claims of cost-effectiveness that are inconsistent with the incentives created will go unmet.
It may be that President Obama knows too little of his “solution” to provide specific plans. If so, he knows too little to deliver on his promises. Achieving intended goals then necessarily depends on blind faith that Obama and a panoply of bureaucrats, legislators, overseers and commissions will somehow adequately grasp the entire situation, know precisely what to do about it, and do it right (and that the result will not be too painful, however serious the problem)–a prospect that, due to the painful lessons of history, attracts few real believers.
Alternatively, President Obama may know the details of what he intends, but is not providing them to the public. But if it is necessary to conceal a plan’s details to put the best possible public face on it, those details must be adverse. If they made a more persuasive sales pitch, a politician would not hide actual details. They would be trumpeted at every opportunity, proving to a skeptical public he really had the answers, since concealing rather than revealing pays only when better informed citizens would be more inclined to reject a plan.
Claiming adherence to elevated principles, but keeping detailed proposals from sight, also has a strategic advantage. It defuses critics. Absent details, any criticism can be parried by saying “that was not in our proposal” or “we have no plans to do that” or other rhetorical devices. It also allows a candidate to incorporate alternatives proposed as part of his evolving reform, as if it was his idea all along.
The new administration has already put vague proposals on prominent display. However, adequate analysis cannot rest upon such flimsy foundations. That requires the nuts and bolts so glaringly absent. In the private sector, people don’t spend their own money on such vague promises of unseen products. It is foolhardy to act any differently when political salesmen withhold specifics, because political incentives guarantee that people would object to what is kept hidden. So while vagueness may be good political strategy, it virtually ensures bad policy, if Americans’ welfare is the criterion.
{ 6 comments }
Why do you waste so many words on Obama’s Big Adventure?
All you are doing is providing the false legitimacy that his words are worth discussing, or that any words that emanate from the mouths of those in power are.
The only real critique of those types? Point out the nakedness of the emperor instead of insisting the cloth is of the wrong color.
It isn’t like your pointing out political vagueness is going to have any effect (has it ever?). Voters, like all other delusional people, like the magical mysticism of the unknown where anything is possible. Infinity, you see, offers unlimited potential. It is the only political tool that can survive the test of time, as there is always another gimmick to pull out of this black bag. (and it is always TINA who is doing the pulling, deflecting yet again responsibility away from fast-talking politico who invokes her)
Take away the mysticism, and suddenly the voter realizes there is nothing real to vote for.
Gary,
Yes, Obama used this strategy during the campaign. I had friends tell me that once he was President things would change because he would have to be specific. I laughed because I knew he would continue to use the same tactic, as you point out he has.
The strategy, as you also point out, gives him the ability to disclaim any actual policies. Also defining success only allows him to claim that his policies could be successful if only they were exercised a little more.
But there is a way to throw a kink in this strategy. We must clearly define failure. If we can define failure then any attempt to be vague only leaves him grasping for an explanation. If he states that he simply did not do enough he is still a failure. If failure is defined Obama will have to succeed. Otherwise he will clearly be a failure and his empty policies will be seen for what they are.
From my experience, all politicians are failures. All are liars because they say whatever people want to hear to get elected. They never keep their promises and the only one I want them to keep is their oath to protect the constitution. At any rate, I have become a big fan of Rothbard’s “Libertarian Manifesto”. Unfortunately, it can never become a reality. Please excuse my rant.
President Obama’s promises of listening to people about change were embodied in the change.org and change.gov web sites.
We went “toe to toe” with all the hot-button issues on change.org and got “Health Freedom is Our First Freedom” into the Top Ten Social Issues on the site, and thence into the President’s Briefing Book on change.gov.
The definition of Health Freedom:
“Health Freedom means the right to control what happens to your body, choosing your own health path, making our own health choices as you see fit.”
http://www.change.org/ideas/view/health_freedom
Well, obviously the new president hasn’t read his own Briefing Book of Social Issues!
And you can, should you wish, send a message to your congressperson and to the president, click here:
http://www.healthfreedomusa.org/?p=2096
Politicians being vague? Well, that’s a new one! And congresspeople always read all the proposals before they vote on them, right?
Absent concrete details
This is wrong. It’s an incorrect assumption that knowing the details (rules) allows you to instantly understand the implications of the rules.
This is a huge problem.
Conway’s Game of Life has very simple rules and yet the implications of them are not at all obvious. Compared to the real world they are trivial so any politician passing a new law clearly has no clue to all the ramifications of what he is doing…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway's_Game_of_Life
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