GENERAL elections are ultimately about choosing governments, but during the past two decades the multiplication of parties with Dail representation has made it increasingly difficult for the electorate to determine the kind of government which will emerge.
This may be one of the factors which have contributed to the decline in turnout at general elections - from around 76 per cent in most of the 16 elections between 1932 and 1981, to about 73 per cent between 1982 and 1987 and 68 per cent in 1989 and 1992.
This time, however, there is not alone a clear and unambiguous choice between two alternative coalitions, but there is also a clear difference between these alternatives in one of the most crucial policy areas, taxation.
This may have contributed to the fact that in the latest poll, one-quarter of formerly discontented or unimpressed voters came off the fence and gave their support to the return of the Government, halving from 12 per cent to 6 per cent the gap between the numbers supporting the alternative coalition.
This swing in support for the Rainbow Coalition should logically presage an increase in support for its component parties during the two weeks ahead.
It was courageous of the Government parties to eschew the more easily saleable policy of concentrating on reductions in tax rates and to adopt the more complex but socially more equitable policy of increasing allowance and bands - a policy which readers will recall I have frequently advocated in this column.
When Fianna Fail was in government with the PDs between 1989 and 1992, tax rates were reduced by five to six percentage points, with a metaphorical fanfare of trumpets but, during that time, the crucial personal allowances were increased by barely one-quarter of the amount by which the cost of living increased, in other words, the real value of the personal allowance was reduced by 6.5 per cent.
Consequently, part of the six-point cut in the top tax rate in that period was financed with money clawed back from people on lower incomes through the deliberate erosion of the value of the basic personal allowances.
Thus, high-profile reductions in tax rates yielded no reduction whatever in the burden of tax - defined simply as the proportion of personal income taken in income tax and PRSI.
Indeed, including PRSI payments, the burden of taxation on income actually rose slightly under that FF/PD government.
By contrast, under the present Government, which between 1994 and 1996 increased personal allowances by 24 per cent (which was six times the increase in the cost of living), the burden of both income tax and PRSI has fallen.
These are all facts, verifiable from the national accounts and the budgetary data.
If voters are to take rational decisions on June 6th, it is important they should be aware of these facts which, I feel, have yet to be presented to the electorate with sufficient clarity and emphasis.
IN LINE with the policy they adopted between 1989 and 1992, neither the Fianna Fail nor the PD tax proposals published last week made provision for any increase in personal allowances for the 92 per cent of people who are under 70 years of age.
On the basis of the annual inflation rate of 2.1 per cent projected by the ESRI, this means that over the next five years, the value of these personal allowances would be eroded by 11 per cent under a FF/PD government.
This means that, just as happened when the PDs and Fianna Fail were in government, the further reduction in the top tax rate promised by those two parties would be partly secured at the expense of the less-well-off, who would be penalised by the failure to increase personal allowances, even in line with inflation.
Rumours yesterday that Fianna Fail was contemplating a U-turn by announcing a belated conversion to some modest increase in personal allowances suggest a panic reaction to the realisation that the electorate is not going to buy the tax-rate confidence trick.
Given that its tax proposals already outrun substantially the £300-million-a-year tax cuts provided for in the Partnership 2000 national agreement, such a U-turn would seriously undermine the credibility of the Opposition at a critical stage in the campaign.
Nor will an effort to switch the focus of debate to public expenditure help the Opposition - because here again its record tells against them.
Between 1989 and 1992, Fianna Fail and the PDs increased public spending in current money terms by a hefty 9.6 per cent a year.
In part, this reflected the need to provide for a sharp rise in unemployment during this period, but another important factor was the 8.2 per cent annual increase in the public service pay bill during this period, which accelerated to 9.1 per cent a year during Fianna Fail's last period in government between 1992 and 1994.
As a result, there was no room for any real increase in the volume of public services provided and the rate at which other transfer provisions - pensions etc - were being improved had to be reduced.
FIANNA FAIL and the PDs are in no position to criticise the increase in spending by the Government, which has in fact been running at a rate one-fifth be/ow that of the FF/PD government.
True, the growth of spending has been higher than the Government had planned - largely because of a series of unforeseeable one-off demands - but it has been almost in line with current spending increase rate during the period of the last Fianna Fail government, i.e. 7.5 per cent a year in current money terms.
While the overall increase in current spending has been identical with that in Fianna Fail's last period in office, the fact that the public service pay bill rose by only 4.1 per cent a year between 1994 and 1996, together with the sharp fall in unemployment, has enabled this Government, despite the unexpected one-off commitments it has had to face, to improve public services more rapidly.
Moreover, while keeping the increase in current spending to the same level as its immediate predecessor but one-fifth below the growth of spending by the FF/PD government, it has been able to be more generous with increases in social welfare payments.
Thus, Fianna Fail and the PDs are effectively blocked by their past performances from claiming to be better equipped to control spending, while at the same time their failure to make any provision for increased personal allowances has undermined the credibility of their tax proposals.
This has not been a good start to their respective campaigns.