Broad-based government not a solution to economic problems

The 41st President of the United States, George Herbart Walker Bush, and President William Ruto have a few things in common. Both served as deputy (vice) presidents before ascending to the presidency. 

Both came into the highest office on the altar of economic reforms without raising taxes as part of their campaigns. Bush is most remembered by his promise, “Read my lips; no new taxes”. It is this statement that would ride him to power in the 1988 elections and would later be used by Bill Clinton to beat him in the 1992 elections after he raised taxes midterm and failed to solve the cost-of-living problem. 

Ruto won elections in 2022 largely because of his well-crafted hustler movement against the backdrop of an ailing economy burdened by debts and high cost of living. In the 2022 elections, Kenya’s problem was, in the words of Bill Carville during the 1992 USA elections, “the economy, stupid”. 

The economic problems remain today. It is the reason young Kenyans went to the streets. We are paying international debts with all the taxes. Banks can’t provide low-interest loans. Business owners are listed by the Credit Reference Bureaus. The Hustler Fund is not reaching the bottom and remains unaccounted for. The housing projects are catering for just a few with the majority still jobless. 

Attempting to solve economic problems through political movements like what Ruto calls “broad-based government” is what the young people call “tone deaf”. We do not have a political problem as a nation. Neither do we have a policy or problem relating to the kind of laws that we have. As a matter of fact, our Constitution and accompanying acts of Parliament are some of the most progressive in the developing world. Our problems are not even related to inclusivity. It is economics. And the solution is rather straightforward; execution. 

These half-baked political solutions will come back to haunt us. We can postpone the problem but will not solve it by addressing the symptoms. Kenyans have tried all political solutions. What they want is the execution of the economic solutions. In their book “The Four Disciplines of Execution”, Chris McChesney, Sean Covey and Jim Huling have some quick ideas on what execution should entail as a discipline.

They propose the need to focus on the wildly important, act on lead measures, keep a compelling scorecard and creation of a cadence of accountability. Could Ruto then be lacking the courage to execute? Is he beholden to some particular interests we are not alive to? Why can’t he, for example, do what Frankline Delano Roosevelt or Barack Obama did when both were faced by near similar circumstances?

Both presidents started by focusing on the wildly important when their country was troubled by the greatest economic recessions of their ages. They focused on the economy. This they did by creating employment opportunities to the majority in the lower rungs of the economy, reducing taxes (small government) and punishing corruption.

They then acted on lead measures as an execution discipline when both launched the most comprehensive economic stimulus packages, thereby injecting hundreds of millions of dollars into the local economies while providing the much-needed employment to almost each and every household and engendering circulation of money locally. Such initiatives have the potential to increase people’s ability to pay taxes while broadening the tax base at the same time. Why is Ruto not executing a comprehensive economic stimulus package targeting millions of youth who are unemployed, either formally or informally?

Ruto hopes that by bringing politicians into his cabinet, there will be increased communication of his scorecard. This will, however, only work if he adopts a comprehensive communication framework like the “fireside” chats of Roosevelt with targeted content for relevant media, increased truth and predictability in government communication.

Mr Wambiya is a Social Scientist