This government is fiscally conservative…except when it comes to spending money:

Ottawa to spend $16-billion on fighter jets

he Harper government is confirming it will spend $16-billion for the latest generation of fighter jets from Lockheed Martin.

But the government is fending off complaints that making one of the biggest military purchases in Canadian history without a single competing bid is a waste of taxpayer money.

The Liberals and a former public servant who once headed the purchase project say the massive F-35 Joint Strike Fighter purchase should have been subjected to competitive bids.

Sadly, all my posts can’t be about sample selection bias, and on the topic of military fighter jets, my expertise is limited to what I’ve seen in Top Gun. But, to me, 16 billion feels like a lot of money to spend outside of a competitive bid process.

And I suspect a lot of voters would feel the same way.