MISSOURI WATCH: THE POLITICS OF PROMISING EVERYTHING

Among all the ploys of the' political process, none is more ingrained than the practice of diverting voters' attention from the troubles of today by promising relief tomorrow.

The practice is much in evidence in the 'political campaigns of 1996. It is defensible. It fits with the natural human tendency to hope for better time in the future.

So why discuss the matter? The reason for this commentary is that the practice can be deceptive. Citizens can be taken in by unrealistic, improbable promises, a strategy that is certain to bring on disillusionment with both the political process and self-government.

The patterns of dodging the present by promising for the future are commonplace at all levels of government. For years the nation's president or his spokesmen have soft-pedaled concerns about the federal budget deficit by assuring voters that it was on the way to being corrected.

In its "Economic Report of 1982," President Ronald Reagan's Council of Economic Advisers promised that the federal budget deficit would be cut in half by 1989. A few years later, the sages of a new Council purred that the recently enacted Gramm-Rudman-Hollings law would bring the budget fully into balance by 1993.

Those of us who wrote that both predictions were wrong were labeled little-faith doubting Thomases who either had a political ax to grind or were simply too short-sighted to understand the brilliance of the proposals being offered.

A little more than a year ago, President Clinton and Republican leaders of the Congress argued over whether balancing the federal budget could be done in five years or whether seven years would be required. The odds that either would materialize were, and remain so, next to zero.

Political promising takes two forms. The first is obvious. It's the promising that is heard on radio or TV talk shows and, of course, in political campaign speeches. It can be pretty loose; no candidate for office has been known to post bond on his pie-in-the-sky pledges to the electorate. Yet this version of the game is essentially innocent. Voters who accept a candidate's promises at face value and then fail to badger him (if elected) have only themselves to blame.

The second method of promising is different. Contentious issues are ducked for the moment by enacting a law that books corrective action for a later date. Many of the laws enacted today have a futurity element in them.

This year's farm law (FAIR) is futuristic. Commodity programs and payments are not to be eliminated now. Instead they are made deliciously attractive. Participating farmers won't have to reduce acreage, yet can qualify for sizable "transition" payments for six more years. After 2002 the transition will be complete and payments will end. Farmers can, presumably, count on a new era that some will view favorably as "freedom to farm." Others will deplore it as denying them a safety net. But it's all in the future, with no immediate pain for today.

Various laws postpone a promised gratuity in order to delay the fiscal impact. Those who have a penchant for very large, expensive automobiles are an example. By expensive, I mean motor vehicles with a sticker price of $34,000 or more. This year the purchasers will pay a 10 percent luxury tax. The rate will drop one percent a year to, eventually, zero.

Small businesses and other self-employed persons are looking forward to increased tax deductibility of health insurance premiums, as promised by another piece of federal legislation. Last year the deductibility was raised from 25 to 30 percent. It will soon go up to 40 percent, and will climb to 80 percent by 2006.

Will all these goodies materialize? No one can answer that, but some may and many will not. As this column has noted on perhaps too many occasions, laws involving a dollar cost are subject to each year's budget and appropriation process. By its very nature that process is unpredictable simply because it is based on what is happening not in the year 2002 or 2006 but today and tomorrow and the day after.

Patricia Peak Klintberg, writing in the respected "Economist" magazine, recently observed that only certain categories of legislated contracts are legally binding into the future. Otherwise, Congress is allowed to change its mind, and while I have no count on kept and broken promises by all the politicians in Washington, I suspect the clear winner is the reneged deal, not the done variety.

FAIR and the transition payments promises to farmers are a case in point. Under conditions of budget austerity they are highly likely to be trimmed back. Klintberg quotes a House Agriculture Committee veteran who states the obvious: "As Congress tries to reconcile the budget in coming years, don't tell me they won't look at contract payments again." Farmers aren't the only ones facing the threat of broken promises. Ask any business person whether past political pledges to reform the tax code or reduce paperwork or mitigate regulatory oversight have been kept and you are likely to get a very cynical laugh.

It's easy for candidates for office to gush promises and often not too difficult, once elected, to pre-date beneficial changes in legislation. But let's not be misled, especially where appropriations are involved: most legislation applies to the here and now. Its extension into the future is typically problematic.

A good rule of thumb for today's witnesses to political promises is simple: if it sounds too good to be true, it probably isn't.

~Jack Stapleton of Kennett is the editor of the Missouri News and Editorial Service.