Here are a few embarrassing questions for many of us: What are taxes for? Why do we tax anybody?

These embarrass because they spur many of us to answer “To level the playing field.” Or “To make the rich pay their fair share.”

If this is what taxes are for, then let us not call them taxes. Let us call them penalties.

Some old-fashioned people cling to a stupid idea: Taxes are for raising money to run a government.

“Oh, sure, that’s what taxes are for. But at the same time we want to level the playing field, make the rich pay their fair share.”

Right.