Only from the contextual standpoint of the backward US. I live in a slightly more civilised site where there's more than a dime's worth of difference in what passes for political debates, South Africa, and seven years ago, the African National Congress was so nervous about electoral apathy and rising protests ahead of a major municipal vote that they made a huge campaign out of this promise, and attracted the majority of votes from the country's practical people: ‘ANC-led local government will provide all residents with a free basic amount of water, electricity and other municipal services, so as to help the poor. Those who use more than the basic amounts will pay for the extra they use.’
Sure, a promise is a promise, but we're having plenty of fun periodically expanding the envelope on this, especially through the work of township activists who illegally reconnect water and electricity, or destroy pre-payment meters, with that sort of justification - as you see in this case moving now through the courts, for which the very radical activists have acquired the services of Wim Trengove, probably SA's finest lawyer: www.law.wits.ac.za/cals/phiri/index.htm