[phpisthebest]

>>These taxes can fund free education or healthcare or defense.

is it is always a bad idea to ear mark a tax for a specific purpose. Especially if you desire to use the tax as a punitive measure to reduce that which you deem bad for society, if it works now you need to come up with the money for the thing you funded elsewhere because all government programs are permanent

Look at smoking, all kind of things were funded on the back of smoking taxes, and when those punitive taxes worked to reduce smoking the revenue dried up but the budgets for for those programs did not so now the money had to come from somewhere else....

Using the tax code to punish or reward behavior is always bad

[shortsunblack]

Using tax to punish or reward is called correcting externalities. More formally these taxes are called Pigovian taxes and they are supported by economists from all the schools, in similar vein to a land-value tax, because Pigovian taxes do not hamper economic producitivity.

You seem to misunderstand the entire concept of taxation, in its entirety, also. Taxes can either be used to raise revenue, or to correct for externalities. A tax that corrects an externality is valid on its own, EVEN IF, the revenue from that tax is burned or otherwise destroyed. It corrects for market failure, which leads to greater surplus.

[ahtihn]

> Using the tax code to punish or reward behavior is always bad

Isn't that pretty much the entire purpose of the tax code and why it's so complicated?

It's one of the tools the government has to shape behavior.

Actual tax revenue doesn't really matter since a permanent deficit and ever-growing debt is apparently fine.

[phpisthebest]

While you are correct given the government debt levels and printing of money, on principle taxation should only be used to raise money for public purposes. Not to incentivize or punish behavior.

Allowing the government to use taxation for purposes other than public finance has been and will continue to be an avenue for abuse, and authoritarian control ultimately leading to tyranny