Canadian politics are boring, especially since the election cycle is usually very short (30-60 days max), the rest of the time the party in power governs and ignores the opposition (more or less). American politics are exiting, but exiting in the way of a car crash. You slow down to see the carnage, but eventually if you are "lucky" to see real pain and suffering you become disgusted with your voyeurism
That's what the political process is like now. The vitriolic has become such that it is painful, moreover, the process has become insanely long. Imagine Barack Obama has begun campaigning -- more than a year before the elections are set to occur on Nov 2012!
At heart I am a conservative. I have major issues with the size of America deficit, but I also have issues with the way the government is funding its operations. First, the idea that funding two wars on the charge card is a terrible idea. Second, the status quo in health care is just not a reasonable alternative (16% of GDP and growing at 7% p.a.). I agree that governments don't create wealth (jobs) but they can create a opportune environment. America's tax code is a disaster. On one end you have mega corporations paying no taxes (GE in particular has paid virtually no taxes for years), yet SME's pay 35-39% tax rate.
Blame America's media or even its education system, but the truth is that Americans are in general economically illiterate. Is $20 billion a lot? (a) that the budget for NASA in 2010 -- many Americans would say that's too much money for a boondoggle (space), but (b) it is also a little bit less than the American military spends on air conditioning in Iraq and Afghanistan. Suddenly $20 billion doesn't sound like much. The federal government 2011 budget will borrow 40% of its outlay or $1.4 trillion, that means that cutting NASA's budget by 100% would reduce the deficit by slightly more than 1%, just 99% to go.
On that basis the demagoguery of virtually every republican candidate for president is astonishing, aside from Ron Paul every other candidate seem to have little understanding of economics. They assume (Ryan Plan) that America can reduce its unemployment rate to 2.8%, that inflation will stay below 1% and that GDP growth will be more than 5%. Reality check, at no time in the past 60 years has U.S. unemployment been below 3%, GDP growth of 5% has only rarely been achieved (briefly after a recession), and with very low unemployment inflation would jump. Moreover, interest rates would be a lot higher than 1%. That's a huge lie, and yet it is preached as gospel!
Watching Rick Perry's grand entrance Sunday with his 10th amendment comments, concealed gun, cowboy boot wearing shtick is depressing. Maybe America gets the politician it deserve, after all the Tea party has an important message that 10% government deficit cannot continue, while at the same time saying that military, healthcare and social security cannot be touched, demonstrate a deep misunderstanding as to where the money is spent (in fact these three items plus interest expenses account for 77% of government expenditures).
It gets even better apparently now the Republicans want to elimination of America's small gas tax -- which by the way is 100% used to maintain America's roadway system. As a conservative, a user taxes is the most efficient may of taxing a public good. Those who use America's roadway should pay for those roadway, the more you drive the more you use the more you contribute to their maintenance cost. These guys take the view that all taxes are bad -- I guess they prefer toll roads.
Depressing I tell you,