Liberals versus Conservatives

[Darth Servo]

When a government doesn't spend as much money as it expected to, you do not call it "underspending". You call it "good".[/quote]Except for the Republicans that is.

[Aaron]

Actually, a lot of the heads of organizations that run economic austerity programs in the third world often ask the first-world not to abrogate third-world debt. It reduces investor confidence and generally makes the governments in question unaccountable. Hell, even some leaders in third-world nations have joined this call, arguing that if the U.S. and other nations went forward and forgave debt, their opposition would become too reckless.

I also don't buy the idea that any given nation can rack up excessive goodwill just by forgiving debt.

Umm can you dumb that down a bit. I didn't understand any of it. And I didn't say it racked up goodwill, just that it makes us look good.

[Darth Wong]

Canada has not gone through 9/11, and is not at war at the moment, and has not spent nearly as much on National Security as the US.

Wow, talk about completely missing the point. The point is that Republicans have their own reasons to spend money and enlarge the scope of the government, and the belief that anybody called a "liberal" is automatically more fiscally responsible than anyone called a "conservative" is just that: a belief, with precious little basis in fact.

What we have seen is a Republican government that vastly enlarges the scope of the government, goes on ridiculously expensive foreign expeditions for questionable reasons, and sets new records for pork-barrel spending. Of the massive increase in spending under George W. Bush, only 20% of it is military, and of that 20%. most of it has gone to defense contractors such as Haliburton.

The net result is that you get a government which won't fund welfare to a level sufficient to avoid the creation of pathetic white-trash trailer-park communities and massive burned-out crime districts in inner cities, won't fund health care to a level sufficient to avoid 40 million people being totally uninsured and countless millions in the middle class being forced to pay their own way, yet still finds a way to produce a proportionally larger national debt than a so-called "Liberal" government in Canada. The objection that this government has created extra obligations for itself through its policies hardly changes this fact.

If it was so important to spend this money, the Republicans could have and should have found a way to pay for it. Instead, they're irresponsibly borrowing from the future. Do you know how much interest accumulates on a $7.5 trillion debt? We're talking about hundreds of billions of dollars a year: enough to fund your entire military. It's called "digging a hole for yourself", and the American people just handed George W. Bush a new shovel.

[Stuart Mackey]

When a government doesn't spend as much money as it expected to, you do not call it "underspending". You call it "good".

Considering that 9 billion could have fixed about every major problem and shortfall the Canadian military has, I would call it bad.

Riiiggtt.... Paying off government debt, in the medium and long term increaces available moneybecause you are paying less in interest, ie a bigger economic pie. This means you get to spend more on the millitary while maintaining the same percent of GDP spent. Spend it on the millitary and you have just increased government debt which means even more money is spent on interest payments. Simply put, of course.

[Xon]

A few statistics for your viewing pleasure:

Canada's national debt in 2004: $510 billion (down from peak of $600 billion)
Canada's population in 2004: 32.5 million (from CIA factbook)
US national debt in 2004: $7.5 trillion (up from $5.7 trillion in 2000)
US population in 2004: 293 million (from CIA factbook)

Conclusion: Canada's national debt has dropped from a high of $19k/person to $16 k/person. Meanwhile, the US national debt under a "conservative" government has ballooned from $20k/person to $26k/person.

So who are the big spenders? The "Canadian big-government left-leaning socialist liberals" or the "American free-enterprise right-leaning conservatives"? What is the value of a label?

In comparison:
Australia's national debt in 2003: $233 billion (and less for 2004)
Australia's population in 2004: 19.9 million (from CIA factbook)

So Australia's national debt is less than $11k AUS/person or ~$15k US/person.

While we only have a budget surplus of $5.3 billion, this is after a round of tax cuts and dumping more money into stuff and chipping away at the national debt. Military wise, we have kept on increasing the funding for the past years. This is also with a comprehensive social welfare system and public health care.

Our "Liberials" are fiscally conservative, and somewhat socially progressive. The Federal government is also planning on centralizing universities from being controlled(and funded) by the State to federal level.