I wouldn't underestimate the amount of lead exposure which resulted from leaded gasoline. There's lead, and then there's organolead like tetraethyl lead- same distinction between mercury and organomercury such as methylmercury, which greatly affects biological uptake and harm resulting from exposure. Lead itself and its oxides aren't soluble in too many things- the acetate being one exception.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead(II)_acetate
The Romans were poisoned by their pewter wine goblets and in fact by the lead acetate compounds they added to their wine to "sweeten" it- their plumbing, being pure lead, with few dissimilar metal connections etc. and carrying water rather than acetate, wasn't a big source- probably less than semi-modern plumbing which used lead solder and which was FULL of dissimilar metal connections. While a winemaker tries to avoid making vinegar, there is always a little acetic acid in wine, which makes the recovery of lead acetate possible from lead-containing pewterware. Modern pewters are lead free for the most part.
Phantom, we agree about the US fiscal situation- it's beyond an embarrassment and into the realm of being dangerous on an international level. We likely do not agree on the best way to solve it.
As to Canada's fiscal responsibility- we as a nation have always wrung our hands about being mere "hewers of wood and drawers of water", i.e. not extracting enough value from our natural resources. As it turns out, had we made those investments in value added industries, globalization would have killed them all anyway, so we're benefitting from our lack of investment in a perverse way. The people who make the goods for lower labour costs still need to buy the raw materials from someone, so here we are, selling raw logs to the Chinese and buying furniture and hardwood flooring back from them.
We've seen corporate taxes in Canada lowered to such an extent that US headquartered multinational corporations such as Burger King are moving (on paper) to Canada in order to pay less US corporate tax- a loophole that I'm sure the US feds will close promptly. Net result for Canada? Take-overs of Canadian corps to dilute the US assets, no net new jobs, and no significant increase in Canadian tax revenue either, ie.. not much of anything except a pure loss to the US Fed. I think our corporate tax rates are far too low- I think the cost of lowering those rates to government revenue is far higher than the benefit of attracting and retaining investment. There's no shortage of capital in Canada already- our corporate balance sheets are piled high with cash just like they are in the US. They have the money, but aren't investing it in creating jobs, partially here because the tax is so low- why take the risk on reinvestment when you can take it out in dividends which are taxed favourably when compared to income?
Another thing that might surprise you was that no Canadian bank needed a cent of government money to bail it out in 2008, because we regulate them still based on rules made in the 1930s based on learning from the 1929 crash. When the big five banks all cried "deregulation now, or we'll starve!", we said no- thank God. No other developed country had that favourable outcome as far as I know. And yes, we have forgotten some of that learning- we're allowing the four pillars (banks, trusts, insurance and brokerage) to consolidate into megacorps again whereas we once required strict isolation between them. The time will come when this will bite us in the collective @ss, for sure.
I hear you: taxes on ordinary working folks are high enough to look like slavery, and some of that money is wasted- much more so if you're a person who feels that any money spent helping others is wasted, but even putting that definition aside we can agree that what we have now is actually a tax on the poor to theek the nests of upper middle class government employees- teachers here earn the same median pay as engineers, once you account for the difference in holiday time!
What pisses me off most is that the average Joe can't escape these taxes, while those who own the most have the wherewithal to hire professionals to find ways to shirk their responsibilities. Unlike most "liberals", I'd be happy with a progressive tax or even a flat tax on all income, irrespective of how it was earned, combined with a HUGE estate tax to keep the dynasties in check. And I'd set up the system of tax and welfare such that you do better and better in every way with every extra hour you work. I'd take away all disincentives to gainful employment, but I'd also take away all artificial pressures on wages as well as taking away the current system which treats a dollar earned by investment as worth two to three dollars earned by the sweat of your brow- that's just plain idiotic.
If I were in the 'States, the first massive disincentive to employment I'd get rid of would be the entire private healthcare system, the lion's share of which is funded by a de-facto payroll tax which goes mostly into private hands. No such problem here in Canada of course- we have a single payor system which costs only 11% of GDP to cover 100% of the population versus your 17-18% of GDP which still leaves many uncovered. Treating healthcare as a commodity rather than as a human right does nothing in this case to make its provision more efficient.