Prosperity through tax cuts Re: The Rise And Rise Of Taxes And Spending, Sept. 27.

Re: A Ripe Target: Tax- And- Spend Liberalism, Terence Corcoran, Sept. 27. I agree with Terence Corcoran that strong, principled small government proponents are Canada’s best chance at defeating the Liberal government and having economic growth return to more prosperous levels. I just don’t see such a platform coming from the Tories.

The problem with the Conservatives is that they’ve long abandoned capitalism and the profit motive. They no longer question the justification of taxation, economic/ environmental regulation and the ballooning of the welfare state.

I long for a return to a society where not only church and state were separate but so were — essentially — state and economics. It looks bleak for the foreseeable future but it’s never too late to change. With his reminder that tax cuts would result in wealth generation and more jobs, Mr. Corcoran seems to be stating the obvious, but it is nice to see it in print. He seems to be fairly optimistic; an optimism I do not share. I believe that Canada has been raped by socialists and I do not see a recovery from the disaster within my lifetime.

I am 58 and I have five children. I am strongly encouraging all of them to get out of this country. Otherwise they will spend the rest of their professional lives struggling under a terrible tax burden. The graph depicting historical debt charges incurred by the federal government is accompanied by the explanation “… deficit reduction has saved the government billions in debt charges.” There is an implication here that the deficit reduction led to the debt charge decreases shown in the graph. That’s only partially true. Keep in mind that debt charges relate directly to the level of the national debt and to interest rates, not to an annual deficit or surplus per se.

Beginning in the early ’ 90s, interest rates were decreasing. This was a global phenomenon of which Canada was a major beneficiary. Each 1% reduction in interest rates lowers the annual debt charges on $600-billion of the national debt by $6-billion. As your graph shows, debt charges from the mid-’90s to 20042005 have been reduced by over $15-billion. This reduced expense is overwhelmingly due to interest rate reductions. The lower rates decreased government spending and reduced the deficit.

We need to acknowledge how we have been a beneficiary of these reduced rates and counter much of the mythology surrounding the slaying of the deficit.