@cbae: "LOL. A luxury tax isn't quite the same as income tax now, is it?"
Your absolutely right. Examples of reducing taxes can be found in Canada between the various economic provincial government implementations. Quebec has a high tax regime and a lot of socialism schemes and they have a bad economy compared to for example British Columbia. B.C., and Alberta are projected to have a serious worker shortage in the next few years. Even now many construction projects are held up because of the lack of construction workers.
Quebec by the way has been propped up for decades by equalization payments derived from tax payers in better performing provinces within Canada, which enables Quebec to have better social programs than any other province in Canada as well as maintain high taxes (which reduce revenues).
Some other Canadian facts: No banks needed bailing out or went bankrupt. No housing bubble occurred. Federal debt to GDP is around 38%. (It used to be about 80% before an "austerity" program was implemented in the 1990's). Unfortunately if you add in provincial debts, the debt to GDP is about 80%. Some provinces have almost no debt (Alberta once had billions in surplus, but then went on a spending binge, even outspending Ontario by thousands of dollars on a per person bases), and some don't even have a deficit (Saskatchewan for example).
