[justin66]

> Why should a state be allowed to reduce the federal government's take

Because a state can often do a more effective job of using the money than the federal government.

> and therefore shift the burden of paying for federal services to other states

If you look at the states with high enough income taxes for this to all be relevant, they tend to be "donor" states that pay a lot more to the federal government than they get back.

It might be a good idea to even that all out, but eliminating the local and state tax deduction doesn't help.

[jfk13]

> Because a state can often do a more effective job of using the money than the federal government.

That's just a general argument for preferring local taxation and services over federal ones. I don't think it follows that states should be able to undermine federal taxation by increasing their own taxes. If you believe the federal government should be smaller, and state/local governments bigger, then make that case directly and argue for an overall reduction in federal taxation.