Sin Taxes and the Nanny State

Here are three things I’ve written about tax policy. See if you can detect a pattern:

• I’ve written that I don’t want a value-added tax because the money would be used to finance bigger government.
• I’ve also explained I don’t want a carbon tax because the revenue from such a levy would finance bigger government.
• I’ve given thumbs down to financial transactions taxes as well because I don’t want to finance bigger government.

Just in case it’s not obvious, the common theme is that I don’t want to give politicians new sources of revenue that would be used to expand the burden of government spending.

Some of my technocrat friends get upset by these writings. They argue, often correctly, that some of these taxes are not as destructive as the current tax code.

My response is that they’re making an irrelevant argument. Politicians who advocate the above taxes are…