Quatloos!

Feel free to delete this as being too political or off topic or whatever but, as a patriotic Canadian and as, apparently, the only Canadian on this website, I feel impelled to bring this up. The quote below is from an opinion editorial in today's Wall Street Journal on the best way to balance government spending and taxation. It gives the gold star to us! I've brought this point up before in a thread which appears to have been deleted about how Canada bit the bullet and had, relatively speaking, a government spending bloodbath way back in the 90's which set us on our way to our current prosperity. As a federal civil servant I lived through it and it cost me significantly financially but no complaints, it was needed. Now the US forces itself into a 2% cutback and everyone thinks it is a heralding of imminent Apocalypse.

I put this in Tax Protesters because it is at least a tax issue.

There is no magic ride back to prosperity. The Alesina team is describing the least-bad antidote for the long-term poison of destructive national debt. Fiscal plans based on large, permanent spending cuts are associated with renewed growth more than any alternative policy mix that has been tried. Indeed, spending cuts without big tax increases look to be the only thing that really works. The leading example the past 15 years is . . . Canada. And just an observation: The Dow proceeded to its high after the sequester happened. The cuts were the first credible step in rebuilding private-sector confidence.

Moving this to our Tax Practices and Policy section. Can't promise that it will survive if others start responding to your theory on balancing government. If the responses start getting political, then the thread will be purged.

The Observer wrote:Moving this to our Tax Practices and Policy section. Can't promise that it will survive if others start responding to your theory on balancing government. If the responses start getting political, then the thread will be purged.

Fair enough!