The tail emission is less than 1% when it kicks in, and given that there is natural coin loss it'll tend towards zero or even be deflationary in nature.

More importantly, the tail emission is REQUIRED to prevent out-of-band payments to miners, which can be used to attack the dynamic block size limiter. I have yet to hear a sound argument for why deflation is required for a good MONEY, although I'm sure it's required for a good INVESTMENT. Monero's stated goal is to be the former, not the latter.