Alex Tabarrok has a post today supporting the idea of term limits. He, like me, seems to support them on the grounds that if you know the opposite party may soon be in office, that may soften your governing stand while in office.
I want to believe this is what happens.
But in a world of term limits, do we not now have a world with more “one shot” interactions. Given my sense that people are time inconsistent (remember the behavioral economics criticisms) and present oriented, would we not expect to see politicians being even more opportunistic and ruthless today? After all, we hear all the time how people are not forward looking and radically discount the possibility that “bad things” will happen to them. Why would this not apply to elected officials in office?
On the other hand, I have been to hundreds of restaurants where I had no intention of going back, and nonetheless left tips.
What do you think? Ought we actually fear term limits?
