It is true that the Republicans, in the US, haven’t had a stellar record on government spending since 2000. It has a high standard to meet, if it is to match its own rhetoric. It has been vulnerable to attack over profligacy, and in particular over Bush’s refusal to veto fat-laden bills. (Or rather, his inability to do so in practice because he has no line-item veto.)

It’s got so bad, I’m told, that the Democrats are now the party of fiscal responsibility, and if I’m a small-government libertarian, I should prefer to see Democrats in charge in the US.

Luckily, some people keep track of these things. Witness the House and Senate “RePORK Cards”, published by the Club for Growth, for example. It ranks senators and members of Congress on their voting record against pork barrel spending. These votes all involve amendments to bills aimed at removing discretionary spending earmarks on totally unrelated items.

Some highlights from the Senate, where 15 anti-pork measures came to a vote:

• Only three senators received a perfect score of 100% (and were present for a majority of the votes). All three are Republicans. A fourth, John McCain (R-AZ), was only present for two votes.
• Thirty-six senators scored below 10%. Of those, two are independents, the other 34 are Democrats.
• Next lowest on the list, at 11%, is the junior senator from New York, Hillary Clinton, who voted for one anti-pork amendments out of the nine for which she was present. Barack Obama scored 33%, or two out of six.
• Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) scored a 53%; Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) scored a 7%, voting for only one amendment.
• The average Republican score was 59%; the average Democratic score was 12%.
• Thanks to this dismal voting record, only two amendments were successful: one to cut funding for spinach growers from the Iraq Supplemental Bill, the other not to spend $1 million on a museum dedicated to the Woodstock Festival. Those that failed included funding a visitors’ center in Louisiana instead of providing shelter for victims of Hurricane Katrina (and they bash Bush over Katrina?), millions of dollars for bicycle paths instead of using the funds to improve bridge safety, and $100 million for the 2008 Republican and Democratic nominating conventions (go figure).

In Congress, where 50 anti-pork amendments were considered, these figures stood out:

• Sixteen members scored 100%. All of them are Republicans.
• The average Republican score was 43%. The average Democratic score was 2% — on average, Democrats voted for one anti-pork measure out of 50!
• The only Democrat to score over 20% was Rep. Jim Cooper (D-TN) who received an admirable 98% grade.
• 105 congressmen scored a round zero, voting against every single amendment. The “Pork Hall of Shame” includes 81 Democrats and 24 Republicans.
• The Democratic Freshmen — the new blood that was going to restore fiscal responsibility to Congress — scored an abysmal average of 2%. Their Republican counterparts scored 78% on average.

Let nobody ever again tell me (a) to support a Democrat for their spending restraint, and (b) to believe Democrats when they promise to clean up Congress. The only positive from this report is that Americans can hold their representatives accountable for their wasteful spending. Let’s hope they do so.

After years of delays, restrictions, monopoly domination and a government that enforces a “managed liberalisation” policy that is neither managed nor liberal, there have been growing signs — despite government — of a sort of springtime in the South African telecommunications industry.

Russell Southwood, who runs the London-based Balancing Act Africa, covering telecoms and internet issues in Africa, agrees:

Almost unnoticed the rules of the game are changing and the South African market shows key developments that will transform how markets operate. DSL subscribers there look set to break through the “critical mass” barrier and there are irresistible pressures building up for low prices and no caps.

He says numbers of internet users (and in particular broadband users) are reaching levels that will begin to make an impact on traditional media, too. Competition is coming from newly licenced entrants, mobile operators, and ISPs that are able to compete under the new legal environment for telecoms.

So everybody is now rushing into infrastructure and the vertical integrators … will offer triple and quad play. Telkom will probably now face nine competitors. The traditional contenders will be: MTN, Vodacom, Neotel, and Sentech (that has already decided to get out of the retail space). Possible insurgents contenders will include: MWeb, IS, Verizon and Datapro. Rumour has it that after the recent issue of Wi-MAX spectrum that there is enough remaining spectrum for 4 players Neotel’s retail launch will take place in March/April of next year and it is working on a triple/quad play product.

… The market is unlikely to sustain nine infrastructure players but this flurry of competition will open up the VoIP market, lower national prices and grow the user base for a wider range of services. And what’s not to like about that?

Lots of interesting detail in his article.