Dan Mitchell writes in his International Liberty blog about the links between value-added taxes and larger government.

The value-added tax was first imposed in Europe starting about 50 years ago. Politicians in nations like France approve of this tax because it is generally hidden, so it is relatively easy to periodically raise the rate.

And that’s the reason I am vociferously opposed to the VAT. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the burden of government spending dramatically increased in Europe once politicians got their hands on a new source of revenue.

Simply stated, I don’t want that to happen in America.

Now I have new evidence to support that position.

We’ll start by crossing the Pacific to see what’s happening in Japan, as reported by Reuters.

“Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe vowed to proceed with next year’s scheduled sales tax hike ‘by all means’… Abe said his ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) won last year’s lower house election with a pledge to use proceeds from the sales tax increase to make Japan’s social welfare system more sustainable. …his plan to raise the tax to 10 percent from 8 percent in October next year. Abe twice postponed the tax hike after an increase to 8 percent from 5 percent in 2014 tipped Japan into recession.”

I give Prime Minister Abe credit for honesty. He openly admits that he wants more revenue to finance even bigger government.

But that doesn’t make it a good idea. Japan has been experimenting with bigger government for the past 25-plus years and it hasn’t led to good results. The VAT was just 3 percent in 1997 and the Prime Minster now wants it to be three times higher.

All of which is sad since Japan used to be one of the world’s most market-oriented nations.