It's election time here in Norway again.

And the party climbing up the polls and dreaming of being in government for the first time, is the Progress Party. It belongs on the right, but as the party is completely dependent on the whims of the people, it's hard to get it's exact position. It was originally called "Anders Lange's(the name of the founder) Party Against Taxes and Government Control", and it has retained that legacy. Except that, in addition to cutting taxes dramatically, they also want to increase public spending. Dramatically. The only areas they want to cut anything, is when it comes to things they hate, like cultural stuff, anything related to immigrants and drug addicts. Everything else, they want more of. They want dramatic increases for the police, the military, healthcare spending, schools, roads, pensions, etc etc. They claim to be a liberal(in US terms, conservative) party, but unlike the others, they want everything to be paid by the state.

How is this possible, you ask? it's the oil, of course. Some years ago, our government decided that instead of spending all the oil money, we should save some of it. Those savings are now one of the worlds biggest funds, I think it's around 5 national budgets(325 billion USD). The other parties have agreed to only spend the profits from that fund, and leave the rest of it alone, so that we'll have it when the oil is gone. The benefit of having it became clear during the financial crisis, as we haven't loaned a single dollar to pay for our crisis plans. The Progress Party, however, wants to spend all of it, as quickly as possible. Why be responsible when you can be irresponsible? We'll be dead when the oil dries up anyway. The way they're behaving will simply give our children and grandchildren a huge bill to pay. The oil will dry up, the money will run out. When that happens, they will have to increase taxes and drastically cut all public spending. Sounds jolly...

I can accept a party who wants to cut taxes as well as cut public spending, even though I don't want it. At least they're responsible. If you want higher public spending, you'll get higher taxes. If you want lower taxes, you'll get lower public spending. You can't have your cake and eat it too.

That is, unless your name is the Progress Party, and your goal is to lead our economy to ruin.

On a related note, does anyone want a 22-year old political refugee?