The CBC is calling a Tory minority government up north. This is too bad because now the Conservatives will not be able to move forward with an aggressive agenda. More to follow.

UPDATE MARK:
From CBC.ca
Tories - 115
Liberals - 94
Bloc Quebecois - 50
NDP - 24
Independent - 1

Tories are centre/centre-left, Liberals centre-left/left, BQ left, NDP far left. From an American perspective, kinda sad

H/T Taegan Goddard’s Political Wire:

Blunt Could Face Serious Challenge from Nixon
If Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt (R) were up for election today, a St. Louis Post-Dispatch poll “indicates he’d be in danger of being replaced by his announced Democratic rival, Attorney General Jay Nixon.”

“The poll showed Nixon with an eight-percentage-point edge over Blunt - 51 percent to 43 percent - which was just outside the margin of error rate of 3.5 percentage points for each number. But a sampling of those who backed Nixon indicated that his support hinged largely on dissatisfaction with Blunt.”

This story in the Christian Science Monitor should keep us ever vigilant.

During the first five years of President Bush’s presidency, nondefense discretionary spending (i.e., spending decided on an annual basis) rose 27.9 percent, far more than the 1.9 percent growth during President Clinton’s first five years, according to the libertarian Reason Foundation. And according to Citizens Against Government Waste, the number of congressional “pork barrel” projects under Republican leadership during fiscal 2005 was 13,997, more than 10 times that of 1994.

This is even worse… folks things are bleak because of the liberal Republican establishment that has a hold on Congress, and yes, the spending policies of the White House.

Time is on the side of the left. As politically difficult as it is now to reform of Social Security or Medicare, as the years pass it will get even more difficult. The swelling number of retirees will further strengthen the senior lobby. And as Social Security’s surplus evaporates, there will be less money available with which to establish personal savings accounts.

The prescription drug benefit was another victory for the redistributionists. While it is true that the left wants even more spent on that program, Republican efforts have netted an additional $1.2 trillion being redistributed over the next 10 years.

Certain trends have been favoring the left for the past several decades. In the early 1960s, transfer payments (entitlements and welfare) constituted less than a third of the federal government’s budget. Now they constitute almost 60 percent of the budget, or about $1.4 trillion per year. Measured according to this, the US government’s main function now is redistribution: taking money from one segment of the population and giving it to another segment. In a few decades, transfer payments are expected to make up more than 75 percent of federal government spending.

Currently the federal government consumes about 20 percent of the GDP, which is another way of saying that about 20 percent of Americans’ income, on average, is paid in taxes to the federal government. According to the Government Accountability Office, that is on course to rise to 30 percent by 2040. Most of that 30 percent would be redistributed as payments to other Americans, rather than spent on standard government services like law enforcement, transportation, defense, national parks, orspace exploration.