Politicians Dodge Questions Because You Want Them To

The truth hurts, and most people cower from pain.

Given the dominance of social desirability bias in politics, politicians must maintain a false "fluffy clouds and rainbows" reality. Avoiding tough questions is crucial to keeping the fantasy intact. Politics is a theatre that people enjoy because their team makes a concerted effort to say the things they want to hear. The painful truth of tradeoffs isn't fun, so the voters don't push hard to know about them, and the elected or prospective candidates make no effort to share them.

To close, here are some hard truths: 

• Many poor people are too lazy, unmotivated, or impulsive to get a job.

• Minimum wages hurt the least skilled the most - they ain't worth the arbitrary entry price the government set.

• There is very little that the government can do given political incentives better than a private company, given market pressures.