"Lang" = Public Finances R No Prob: 7% GST + Afghan Peace Dividend ...+CT?

I figured Obamacare would lead to a new round of scaremongering here, despite Picard's best efforts. But anyone who has been paying attention will realise that Eugene Lang has already outlined a simple smart path to eliminating our small structural deficit, implicitly. Add the savings from the end of the Afghan mission to the revenue from restoring the GST to 7% and the structural deficit is basically fixed. As well, if one was to have the wisdom to introduce a carbon tax, as favoured by even Big Oil & Republicans in the USA and Canada West and Alberta and evoked by Harper, then Canada could increase our public finance advantage, fight climate change, transform the economy in a positive way and further finance the necessary investments in our human and physical infrastructures. All this thanks to fairly simple & relatively painless changes. We could do even better if we were sensible and aimed to keep all taxation just better than the OECD average and within the necessary margin relative to the USA, somewhat similar to the NDP proposition to maintain corporate taxation at current levels, or roll it and top personal rates back to 2006 levels. We all know it's cheaper and more productive to pay now rather than paying later for health (& denticare & pharmacare) & daycare & education, and fixing our physical infrastructure, and building for the future, with high-speed rail, comprehensive bike paths in every city, improved ports, R&D, etc..

All this to say that Afghan withdrawal and a 7% GST would mean we were breaking even, a carbon tax would put us ahead of the game, and keeping coldheaded about necessary tax levels would put us even further ahead. QC has a 10-15+% rule v-a-v Ont, and that's basically our collective policy re. USA, but with books in good shape, we don't have to try to be silly and have lowest G7/OECD rates just because of irrational penis envy, a sign of an overcompensating colonial mindset. Given our trade & investment relationships, excessive tax decreases are counterproductive. We just have to stay in the sweet spot, building on our advantages, as we're well ahead of USA & others re. public finances, and we can look beyond death of baby-boomers to following baby bust. Increasing debt over next 20 years because we know subsequent demographic decline will allow us to save is one way. But every bit of clever taxation reduces need for equivalent amount of debt.

See? It's not magic. It's not complicated. It's not hard. It's actually pretty simple and relatively easy for us to keep building on our lead, and pull further ahead. Less scaremongering and more cool reflection on where we are, where others are, and where we and they will be over time would be useful. Looking at absolutes and not relatives is not very helpful, unless things are completely out of wack. And they are not.

I think maybe Boomers should guard against their tendency to look at public policy through their own generational time horizon, and think wider and longer. Just a suggestion.