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Public spending is an easy partisan issue, witness the Liberals going to town on the recent G8 summit.
“The Opposition Liberals have stepped up their offensive on the federal government over newly released expenditure reports for this summer’s G8 and G20 summits, labelling its spending on the events an “orgy of excess.”
One could cookie cutter the parties names around and the above statement could be just as easily coming out of a conservative opposition versus a Liberal government (although probably with more wailing about taxing and spending etc).
The reports include details of $80 million spent on food and accommodation, more than $34 million on telecommunications and electronics and almost $17 million for vehicle rentals and transportation.
During Friday’s question period in the House of Commons, Liberal Deputy Leader Ralph Goodale said Canadians are appalled that the government “squandered” their tax dollars on dozens of summit contracts, including $85,000 for snacks and $14,000 for glow sticks.
Costs add up when you are protecting the elite consensus makers from the rabble and democratic input. Tax dollars would have been “squandered” by any government hosting the G8. What is important in this story is the accountability to the people who are paying the bills. If this event was run privately we would have no access to the balance sheet and therefore no say on whether what we did was justified or not.
Public spending is held to a higher standard of accountability than private spending and that is a good feature of purportedly democratic society. Another feature is that we, the public, can have a say on the spending that is taking place. Admittedly, one voice cannot change the will of government, but with organizing and planning the voices of the people can be heard.
Contrast this with private spending in the public sphere which often comes with little accountability or responsibility.
“No final price tag has been given yet for the dual summits in Muskoka and downtown Toronto, but the overall cost has been estimated to be about $1.24 billion, including at least $930 million for security.
The auditor general’s office says a report on the security costs of the G8/G20 summits is scheduled for spring 2011.”
Was spending 1.24 billion worth it? Given the poor economic timing of such a large expenditure probably not, especially not the fake lake.
bleatmop
Mystro
Dead Wild Roses 
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