Bill Owens and where he (ONLY) stands

In this political ad, Congressman Bill Owens, then running for Congress in New York’s 23^rd district, claims that he wants to eliminate the Bush tax cuts (whereas his two opponents want to keep them) for the wealthy and create jobs.

There are two interesting things about this video.

1) The video is titled “Where I stand”. Based on what we know on how risky informative campaigning is, and based on our assumption that politicians are vote maximizers it might be safe to assume that Bill Owens allegedly, was able to figure out what the median voter’s preferences were. Which would explain why he took such big risks by clearly enunciating where he stands.

2) The second and more important aspect is that Bill Owens claims that he is going to eliminate the Bush tax cuts , create jobs (and makes dozens of other similar claims in other campaign ads on how he is going to change different policies). The only problem with these claims is that Bill Owens ends up, partly by choice, and because of the relative comparative advantages that his district commands, in the Agricultural committee, the Committee on Armed services and the Committee on Homeland Security. The implications this has is that singlehandedly he would never be able to do anything about the Bush tax cuts for instance, not even initiate a bill for that matter because he doesn’t hold a position in the committees responsible for putting such proposals to the floor. The citizens are (rationally) ignorant about what promises a politician can actually keep and which he/she can’t. And usually, the politicians will not be able to hold them without three (almost) overwhelming conditions. He/She should be a member of the committee that deals with that particular issue, that the proposal commands a majority vote in the committee and then command a majority vote in the House, unless there’s a veto by the President and then the bill needs 2/3 of the votes.

So next time a politician claims that he IS going to change something without explaining the committee system and exposing what it entails, you could get away with calling him a “misinformer”, you might even get away with calling him a deceiver.

How can all politicians get away with claims and promises that can’t be kept? How do people buy into it so fast?