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Go find a graph of government spending under all the different presidents since 1980. Tell me who out-spent who.

I'm not a Democrat or a Republican. I believe both are wrong. And, from where I sit, they are exactly the same for growing the government as big as possible. The only difference is in where the growth of government happens, not how much.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Revenue_and_Expense_to_GDP_Chart_1993_-_2008.png Do you really see a difference in spending that correlates well with the party in power? If there's any, it's the opposite of what you assert.
http://rondam.blogspot.com/2006/10/why-i-bash-republicans.html
http://www.kowaldesign.com/budget/
Both of those are debt-only, and they show who has grown the debt, and it wasn't Democrats. So show me, with numbers, not your personal feelings, why I should believe Republicans are the small government party.

No message or link received. Post it here. And your numbers are far off. Look at my numbers again.

Me:From Here
Social Security: $749.1B
Medicare/Medicaid: $1058.4B
Interest on Public Debt: $454.5B
Military Budget: $743.2B
Other: $585.9B

You:
Military: $799B
Everything Else: $383B


Military budget difference of $55.8B. Yet the budget this year is $3,591B. Your numbers total to $1182B, a difference of $2,409B. Your numbers do not include interest on the public debt, medicare/medicaid, Social Security or a variety of other things. Even using $799B as the total military spending on the entire budget, it comes out to 22.3%.

You're off by a bit. We pay $470 billion interest on the national debt a year.
Source
http://www.kowaldesign.com/budget/budget.html

That's a bit of an exaggeration... NASA's share of the federal budget is roughly 15 billion dollars. The DOD gets 475 billion. That's closer to the neighborhood of 30 times. It's worth mentioning that the executive branch gets 25 billion a year though; About the same as the legislative branch, the judicial branch, and NASA combined... Limos and jets cost more than shuttle missions apparently.

You've got Google, use it. According to the budget explorer roughly 644 billion for health and human services and 475 billion for the DOD. And NASA? 15 billion. The Executive office of the President gets about 25 billion BTW.

Eliminate cigarettes and alcohol and you end up with a heck of a lot of money not being spent that could be used for any number of better things.

Well isn't that just a load of off topic flamebait. Yet here at Slashdot, that's what mods call Insightful!

Well, allow me to retort with a few "insightful" comments of my own. I smoke and drink and I say, go right ahead slick... You also eliminate cigarette and alcohol taxes. Oops! Forgot about that, didn't ya sport? So, your "money saved" is already being spent. Here's a better idea... Why don't we institute a fat ass tax on fast food and junk food. Then we can go for a diabeties tax on colas with caffeine... You know, those deadly addictive products with no warning labels. Then we can have All Kinds Of Extra Money to spend on things like space travel and research! ... No? Don't like the idea of taxing your twinkies? Well damn! I could've sworn heart disease was the number one killer in America. Pot, meet kettle.

Alright. Go ahead, mod me down you guys. I know you want to.

Since there were 10 minutes between your post and mine, I assume you did not go to the site.

Instead of researching on handful of technologies, the NASA budget delivers over 30,000 separate spinoffs over the last 30 years in fields such as health and medicine, environment, public safety, consumer/home/recreation, transportation, computer technology and industrial productivity. I call that a pretty damn good investment. By the way, you are aware that NASA's budget is less than %0.5 of the total federal budget right? I mean we spend more than that on the Farm Service agency in this country (source).

I wish more research would deliver that kind of return on investment.

Sorry. You are right. Mea Culpa. I missed that entirely.

That was pretty stupid.

Err... Highest percentage of the problem is the military, not Social Security.... The military has a retirement program on top of just social security

Er, hate to say it but it's not Military either. Highest percentage is the "Department of Health and Human Services" (643.9 billion), followed by "Social Security Administration" (583.5 billion), "Department of Defense"+"Department of Veterans Services" (475.4+68.3=543.7 billion), "Department of the Treasury" (441.2 billion). Also, that military retirement program is just like any other pension plan people recieve. It also comes out of the "Department of Defense" budget.

Stop listening to the republican on your television please.

Stop listening to the democrat on yours.

Aside from pensions being earned.

Department of Health and Human Services: 643.9 billion
Department of Housing and Urban Developement: 40.2 billion (housing voucher)
DoD: 475.4 billion
Verterans Affairs: 68.3 billion
Interest on Public Debt: 392.4 billion

Totals:
Welfare of some form: 684.1 billion
Military spending of some form: 543.7 billion
Sum Total of all spending: 2567.6 billion

Source: http://www.kowaldesign.com/cgi/Budget.pl?estimates =111111

SPENDING IS THE PROBLEM NOT TAXATION!!!
a deficit is SPENDING MORE THAN YOU TAKE IN.
You sir are a liberal simpleton.

Since Bush took power both spending and deficits have skyrocked to unprecedented levels. Bush and his congressional cronies are fucking MORONS simultaneously cranking UP the spending and slashing taxes almost exclusivly on the uber-rich. As you say taxes are not the problem, and it's absolutely sickening how many people are decieved into thinking republicans are fiscal conservatives or that they actually support lower spending. When it comes to running a budget that is one place where "liberal" really is an insult. Bush and the republicans are flagrantly irresponsible fiscal liberals. They have decieved millions of people into voting for them by running up a honking-big credit card bill.

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low taxes

Ok, I'll give you full credit for that one. It is accurate, Bush was indeed the "low taxes" candidate.
However I would say "taxes" isn't a particularly good criteria. It is entirely subjected to spending. You can run up a creditcard bill, you can move money from one pocket to another, you can play a few other games, but one way or another whatever you spend out you eventually have to take in somehow somewhen, with interest.
I'm tempted to reduce credit for that reason, but I'm feeling generous, keep full credit :)

limited government

I'll give 1/2 credit here.
Bush's policy is wildly our of control expansion. Bottom graph, right side. There is just no way Bush is a fiscal conservative. He's a proven track record of explosive growth. The only reason you got any credit here at all is that Kerry's policy was really not reliably predictable. Kerry asserted intent to balance the budget, but sucess rather improbable. On the other hand Kerry almost couldn't do worse than Bush's proven exploding budget and record deficit.

and an aggressive offense against terrorism

Zero credit, though I'm sure you'll flame me.
Home defense, no sucessful subsequent attacks against the US, FULL CREDIT for this portion.
Bush's attack on Afghanistan was almost impeccible, FULL CREDIT up till this point.

HOWEVER, Our Senate Intelligence report concluded there were no WMD's in Iraq and no credible evidence there were such weapons, that there was no WMD program in Iraq and no credible evindence there was any WMD program, and concluded that there was no Iraq-Al Qaeda link and no credible indication of any such link. The Iraq invasion was not an offence on terroism. In fact it had twin negative effects.
Iraq invasion, as carried out, resulted in FLOOD of new Al Qaeda. New terrorists created faster than we can kill them. NEGATIVE SCORE.
Iraq invasion, as carried out, was justified using evidence that was publicly and globally exposed as being KNOWINGLY fradulent*. US media was reluctant to report this unflatering fact, however global coverage extensive. World outrage that Bush - and therefore the US - engaged in invasion based on offering of knowingly fraduant evidence/justification. This alienated all of our allies and essentially the entire globe. The US is now viewed as the rogue nation. Everyone from Canada to Mexico to England, to Japan, to Brazil, to Norway, to Sweden, to Australia, and on and on and on. This anti-US sentiment unrelated to oil-for-food curruption, as such curruption had been restricted to three nations, and thus inapplicble to countless other outraged nations. US credibility ruined, support and cooperation in offence on terrorists crippled world wide. Loss of public support, loss of police support, lose of intelligence support, loss of military support. And worst of all, loss of Canadian and Mexico trust and support criticaly bad for northern and southern border security to keep out terrorists. NEGATIVE SCORE. US news media extremely reluctant to carry any news at all of global outrage at US's deception and behavior.

* Evidence offered: South African "yellocake" uranium documents. US intelligence agencies had informed Bush that the documents were bogus or likely bogus. Bush proceeded to present said documents to UN anyway. Documents almost immediately exposed as forgeries. News extremely unflatering to US, US media releuctant to carry story.
Evidence offered: Aluminum tubes. Expert tesitmony was that such tubes were unsuitable for alledged Uranium enrichment. US intelligence and administration either knowingly presented non-credible evidence, or was criminally incompetent. Story unflattering to US, US media reluctant to carry story.

Final score 1 1/2 :)

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I voted for Bush because I want to cut the legs out from underneath government bureaucrats. I want whole wings of the government to be forced out of business

You think Bush is an economic conservative? Wahahahaha! He's a social conservative. Fiscally he's a lunatic on a spending spee with his Uncle Sam's creditcard.

Just LOOK at Bush's the exploding government. That bottom graph is the federal budget. That crazy growth at the right is Bush.

Sigh. Yet another catagory of voter deceived into voting for Bush. Bush is some sort of master of painting a false image of himself.

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Taxes or fear of how much more I'll end up paying if Kerry gets elected.

If you go to the mall and spend more and more, but you use your Visa card to "keep more money in your pocket", you don't actually end up better off in the end. One way or another the money is spent and one way or another you wind up paying for it.

The fact is that Bush spending is out of control and he's merely pulling out the Visa card to hide it for a little while. The bottom graph shows the out of control spending increases, and the top graph show how the credicard bill is exploding faster than any time in history.

Bush will simply continue his giveaways to business and to the rich while running up spending. At least Kerry wants to try to get it under control.

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If you want register your 3rd party support you can still do so through Votepair.org. They have thousands of registered Kerry supporters in "safe" red and blue states willing to pair up with you and vote for your choice of candidate. If you lean Bush, sorry, I'm not aware of any votepair site with registered Bush supporters willing to assist you.

Clearly neither candidate is quite what you want, but I think you underestimate the difference between Bush and Kerry on your issues. Bush wants all of the Patriot act to be permanent and wants Patriot act 2. Kerry says there are problems with the patriot act and wants to roll back at least parts of it. As for corporate handouts I don't think you can get much more business-slanted than Bush. I am not aware of Kerry's position on campaign finance, but Bush and the Republicans have the closer business ties and more to lose from such changes. Taxes - Ok, Kerry wants to roll back Bush's tax cuts on those making over $200,000. However this is really linked to the next issue - spending. At least Kerry want to try to balance the bloody budget. The top graph here shows Bush's exploding deficit and the bottom graph shows his out of control spending. As for foreign intervention, I think it's clear Kerry is far more reserved than Bush's cowboy unilateral activism. I'm not sure on issues of economic regulation, but Bush is an absolute crusader on social/moral issues along with his pal Ashcroft. Bush is playing to his religious evangelical base, and he has been appointing the most radical social/moral conservative judges he can find. Of all my problems with Bush, I am most horrified by the prospect of him appointing up to three Supreme Court justices. Note that any Supremes Kerry appoints would have to be centrist judges with impecible records, as he needs to get them approved by a Republican controlled Senate.

I absolutely support election reform, and I definitely think we need to shift the government in a libertarian direction (though I don't support radical parts of their platform), but in the mean time I hope you consider Votepair.org. Get that 3rd party vote registered AND boot out the worse-of-two-evils.

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Illustrative bar charts here. :-)

I totally agree with eveything in your post except the implication that the money should come from defense spending. The 2005 Federal Budget shows that that $450B, 18%, for Defense actually includes veterans pensions and other expenses.

In comparison, the United States spends a whopping $1.1T, or 41% of all federal dollars spent on Medicare/Medicaid and Social Security and it's only going to get worse.

I'm not sure where we can cut but I personally can see bigger potential targets than defense.

For openers, I have paid more in taxes in the last two years than I ever recieved in benefits or pay serving my country. I would say that I have paid back Uncle Same probably 4 times over.

As far as the budget is concerned, according to Budget Explorer, the US National Budget for 2005 is expected to pay out 41% of all funds to Medicare, Medicaid, and the Social Security Administration alone. Only 18% is earmarked for National Defense and military pensions.

Tell me we aren't already a welfare state. Perhaps you should take a peak at the budget yourself sometime.

I think every government budget should be slashed, from schools to police. FORCE them to be efficient.

You may not realize it, but you are arguing a point the person who wants to maintain/increase the budget always argues. Whenever there are talks of cuts, they put up a plan for across the board spending cuts. Now everyone is pissed because everyones' personal pet project is detrimentally affected and the whole idea of budget cuts goes down in flames. Bravo.

BTW, didn't Bush promise NASA a budget increase? This just in from the Ministry of Truth: NASA has exceeded all efficiency goals and has patriotically pledged it's remaining funds to the war against the Eurasians.

Now, wanna really get your britches in a twist? The Executive branch gets more money than NASA. (Java applet, if you're using IE or life otherwise sucks, 27B Executive, 16B NASA) Almost twice as much.