The only truly good tax, of course, is a tax on someone else. Failing that, the best taxes are simple, fair and easy to collect, and -- perhaps most important -- they discourage the right things. (When you tax something, you discourage it.)
Take the existing federal gasoline tax. Anyone can understand it. At a flat 9.1 cents per gal., it's easy to collect and reasonably fair, since the more you use the roads, the more you pay for them. It also discourages things we want to discourage: dependence on foreign oil, the trade deficit, pollution and traffic. As taxes go,...
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