You have a slight units error in your analysis.

R* x Fp x Ne results in the number of new life supporting planets *per year*.

Multiplying the next three terms (Fl x Fi x Fc) gives us the fraction (or probablility) of those planets that will eventually have intelligent life.

So, to get the number of coexisting societies per galaxy, you can more or less take the number of new societies per year and multiply by the number of years during which those societies will be able to detect each other (L). The number of new detectable societies (with your wildly optimistic probabilities :) ) = 1.

That's not 1 technological society ever, that's an average of one in existence for any given year, in our galaxy.

There can be many many civilizations that rise and fall, and never know each other, over the course of billions of years.

Tinfoil glasses :)

Spending has gone up with both parties in control of the presidency or the congress. The main difference between the Democrats and the Republicans is that the Democrats raise taxes when they spend more, but the Republicans don't. Here's a nice write-up on the national debt over the years:

http://www.cedarcomm.com/~stevelm1/usdebt.htm

Unfortunately, he doesn't provide inflation-adjusted graphs, which would be interesting.

This is one thing I find funny about "political sloganism" - the Republicans always talk about "tax and spend Democrats", but never talk about the fact that the republicans are the "don't tax but spend anyway" party. As an individual you can't spend money if you don't make money, and there's no reason for the government to be any different. (and many reasons for the government to be the same - read "The Creature From Jekyll Island" by G. Edward Griffin for a lot of interesting information about how the financial system works)