As hundreds of state and local governments across the country struggle with massive budget deficits, it has become a standard tactic of the Left to try to sell tax increases as tax “reform.” Their contention is that the recession has laid bare not excessive spending growth during the boom years but instead the rickety structure of a tax code that needs to be updated. In Georgia, for example, a recent university report concluded that the state’s tax system was no longer adequate to finance the amount of government provided — that a “structural deficit” had already existed before the recession came along to smack revenues and boost spending.

For many states, this proposition is quite true — as far as it goes. Despite periodic increases in marginal tax rates on income, property, and retail sales, for example, state and local revenue collections have stayed around 10 percent of personal income for the better part of three decades, according to analysis by the Tax Foundation. It’s also true that most state income-tax systems are just as screwy as the federal system upon which they are based, and that the advent of online commerce, the service-dominated economy, and interest-group politics have pulled most sales-tax systems far from the stated ideal of a single, flat-rate tax on all consumed income.

Tax reform ought to be a hot topic in state capitals, in other words — but not based on the expectation that it will boost revenue and thus sustain the current bloated level of state and local spending. Rather, it ought to be pursued as a means of increasing economic growth, efficiency, and fairness. Conservatives need to be cognizant of what the “tax reform” movement really is in many states, and avoid being played. The situation is similar to national calls for a sales or value-added tax to replace America’s costly, inefficient income-tax code — the idea may sound good in theory, but it’s a trap. Don’t fall for it.