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.

The truth is that millions of folks do not see that taxes’ first job is to bring in money. Money to run and do what government runs and does. Instead, they see the tax system as a social waterboarding. They think its role is to take from those who have more. So government can “spread the wealth around.” Per President Obama’s remark in the campaign.