OUR VIEW: Promises you can’t keep

While it is not a race for state senate or a legislative seat or even a race most of us will remember, the upcoming elections for the Associated Students of Utah State University is important and there are several issues that should be of concern.

Admittedly, this is a time when many of us take advantage of the free candy and hot chocolate. And yes, there tend to be a few humorous signs or campaign attention grabbers. But there is an area most of us overlook – campaign promises. These promises, hopeful vote securers, should not be made last minute by candidates or merely thrown out because it was “a good idea at the time.”

Members of ASUSU are faced with monetary requests from numerous departments and organizations throughout their candidacy. However, if the promise is made not to raise student body fees during election campaigns and a bill is proposed to raise student fees to benefit the students through a service, what alternatives does the candidate have – break a promise or deny a benefit to students? Obviously, sometimes the alternative chosen should be to break the promise and benefit the students. But, our response is that the promise shouldn’t have even been made.

ASUSU represents the student body and all we ask is not to be misled into voting for an individual based on what they promise only to have that promise become a lie in the end. If candidates are going to make promises, they should make them based on educated experience in that field – something they won’t have to do research on the next year and consequently realize their promise shouldn’t have been made in the first place.