You probably know know that New York and Connecticut are high-tax states. But how about Nevada? Writing for the Nevada Policy Research Institute, Steve Miller says that as a percentage of income, Nevadans pay more in taxes than residents of 46 other states.

My first thought when reading this was that Nevada must have a lot of people who are burned by the federal income tax. But Miller says that state and local tax burdens--the responsibility of state officials--are also to blame.

"In 1980," he writes, "Nevadans’ state and local tax burden as a percentage of income was 8.6 percent. By this year it had risen to 10.1 percent — an increase of 17.44 percent."

Now that says something about the rise of government in Nevada. I've heard some people defend their state's tax burden this way: "It may look like we have high taxes. But if state and local government is now a lower percentage of income than it used to be." A variant of that argument is that the state is lower on the rank order to which Miller refers to than it used to be.

Now here's the problem I have with that: if you translate spending priorities into a food menu, government should be a staple, not a luxury food. As your income goes up, you should be spending less on bread or milk as a percentage of your income--not the same amount or even more. Instead, too many states expand the "diet" of government as income expands. Over time, the income of society increases. So when the government of a state increases its percentage take of the economy, you most likely have an out-of-control situation.

By the way, how does Miller's contention that Nevada is a high-tax state square with Nevada's reputation as a low-tax one?

You'll have to click through -- and then wait a bit -- to find the answer.