What do do with the $1.95/vote subsidy: Give it to the Parliamentary Budget Office

We all know that the Harper government's proposal to kill the the $1.95/vote subsidy for the federal political parties blew up in its face. But would it have been good policy? Andrew Coyne thinks so, and it's hard to see just what public policy goal is being served by giving public money to political parties.

"But Stephen", you may object, "political parties need that money to hire policy analysts in order to criticise the government's proposals and to present credible alternatives so that the public may benefit from an informed debate of the issues." My answer to this is: HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Political parties spend that money on attack ads, focus groups, spin doctors and buying drinks for columnists. The research office of a typical opposition party invariably consists of an earnest 25-year-old humanities MA who will soon realise that no-one is paying attention, quit, and be replaced by an earnest 24-year-old humanities MA.

Now, we all know that the Conservatives' motive in advancing this idea is to kneecap the Liberals and the BQ (the NDP has a certain amount of success raising money from its own base). But here is a counter-proposal that I wish someone would make: take that $30m subsidy and give it to the Parliamentary Budget Office. With those kind of resources, the PBO could use its professional expertise to generate report after report on policy issues, offering independent and informed analyses of whatever options parliamentarians wish to consider.

There are at least two benefits to this:

1. The government will have to face questions much more pointed than what an earnest 25-year-old humanities MA can put together.
2. Journalists deprived of leaks and insider gossip may start writing stories based on PBO reports instead. (Here I must make an exception for Maclean's Kady O'Malley, who is - AFAICT - the only journalist who has made it a point to follow and publicise the activities of the PBO.)

Win-win, all around.

Comments

[Declan]

"it's hard to see just what public policy goal is being served by giving public money to political parties"

It is? I thought the obvious public policy goal was to keep political parties from being overly beholden to people/organizations capable of mobilizing large numbers of individual donors (PAC style).

Seriously, its $30 million. If funding the parliamentary budget office is a good idea, we should do it. Saying we need to get the funds by cutting public funding for parties is akin to saying you should fund the parliamentary budget office by reducing the size of the senate by 10 seats - a needless juxtaposition of two totally unrelated items.

[Stephen Gordon]

Oh, I agree with the goal of keeping parties free from being beholden to large donors. But I thought that had been dealt with by means of the donation cap and by banning contributions from anyone but individuals.

[Leo Petr]

Having the subsidy in place discourages the parties from passing legislation that raises the donation cap or allows corporate/union contributions.

It also makes it easier to form a new party, which I view as a public good.

[Jim Rootham]

The more parties have to fundraise the more likely they are to be corrupt. Limits notwithstanding.

Also, the more time parties have to spend on fundraising the less time they have to attend to their real jobs.

Stephen, go reread Declan again, he made no mention of large donors.

[Andrew F]

"Oh, I agree with the goal of keeping parties free from being beholden to large donors. But I thought that had been dealt with by means of the donation cap and by banning contributions from anyone but individuals."

But not from small, determined lobbies. Think religious organizations, members of some trade unions, hardline ethnic minorities, etc. Having parties rely on these kinds of groups for political donations tends to lead to polarized politics to satisfy the hard left and hard right elements of the political spectrum.

If you want to cut political subsidies, I suggest ending the highly preferential tax treatment of political donations (with an initial marginal tax refund of 75%!). Per-vote subsidies rewards contention in ridings where a challenger party is not likely to win (leading to more nationally-balanced policies, and not writing off entire regions that are not electorally necessary to for government).

So, I'd say that there are a number of public policy objectives satisfied by per-vote subsidies. I think the case against heightened tax refunds for political donations is stronger.

On the other hand, so far I am ecstatic with Page and the PBO. I think that in the medium term it has the potential to improve the quality of policy discussions in this country. So indeed, the PBO needs greater funding and independence, and it would be money extremely well-spent.

[Robert McClelland]

$30 million/year to insure that our democracy remains healthy is a small price to pay. Considering conservatives don't actually believe in democracy--Harper's numerous anti-democratic shenanigans and Alberta's broken democracy being prime examples--it's not surprising they want to defund it.

[Stephen Gordon]

But not from small, determined lobbies. Think religious organizations, members of some trade unions, hardline ethnic minorities, etc. Having parties rely on these kinds of groups for political donations tends to lead to polarized politics to satisfy the hard left and hard right elements of the political spectrum.

Why do political parties need to be well-funded? To do research? Please.

And while I can think of cases where a determined band of extremists took control of a party, I can't think of any in which they subsequently won power. Determined bands of extremists don't do well in swaying swing votes where elections are fought: the centre.

eta: Somewhere in this line of reasoning seems to be a belief that a party will be tempted to reject a popular, sensible policy and and accept (further) marginalisation in order to keep the donations coming in.

[Alan]

To further Travis' post, the costs borne by a political party are not just research and policy construction. It costs money to campaign. Someone has to pay the rent on the campaign buses, which I'm sure the PBO sees as outside its mandate.

I'd take a system where we have ONLY the subsidy and no other funding over a system without the subsidy.

[zero]

Alan - I must respectfully disagree. The mixed system we have seems ideal, if only we need to tune the dollar amounts.

My issue with our system is that it is too difficult to unseat incumbent MP's. What I would like to see is a standard set of riding by-laws used throughout the country for all parties in all ridings. The purpose of this would be to make it easier to challenge incumbent MP's and party insiders. Right now if I wanted to challenge my nobody backbench MP I would have to call the constituency office to get a copy of the by-laws. The fun and games would start there and it would likely end in a legal challenge.

Travis - the subsidy was brought in by the corrupt Jean Chretien to kneecap Paul Martin. And the old street fighter did just that - kneecap PMPM.

This one thing will be Chretien's lasting legacy. Sometimes good things come for bad reasons.

[Rick]

One of the potential (perhaps realized) effects of this funding method is the move away from a two-party system to a multi-party system. On the surface this may seem more democratic: more parties, each with less influence, forced to work together for common goals. I see 2 serious problems with a taxpayer funded multi-party system.

1) Cause-oriented and regional parties will gain legitimacy, each could arguably be less likely to favour collaborations. e.g between Quebec and Alberta, or bewteen MADD and Rastafarians
2) There may never ever be a majority again. One should expect weak and watered-down legislation to dominate our future.