Er, no. An economist would be horrified by Harrison Bergeron, as demonstrating the most damaging possible form of egalitarianism and nothing like the grandparent proposal; the point of a height tax is not to make tall people shorter - whatever good or purpose is being fulfilled by tall people is still fulfilled after the tax, and the tax serves the useful function of raising revenue while also not distorting any investments or consumptions or plans.
Better idea: Lets tax everyone who gives tall people advantages. The tall person didn't choose to be tall. Their parents didn't have a say in the matter either. Shall we tax them for making a tall heir?
You know who had a say in tall people having "advantages"? Everyone who gives them said advantage. Tax them.
With all respect, bad idea. The next logical step would be the ability to choose any arbitrary trait to punish for producing an unfair advantage, like being smart (an overrated trait in many circumstances).
Abraham Lincoln was both tall and smart -- such a program would have ruined him. :)
Also, ideas like this only add to the power of governments. I think most people will argue there should be a limit to governmental power. People differ on what that limit should be, but I think most would agree that taxing height or some other trait goes too far.
> being smart (an overrated trait in many circumstances).
I disagree, the advantages of being smart appear in an astounding number of contexts, from making a lot more money than everyone else to living longer to having better teeth etc (and yes, most of the many IQ correlations survive after conditioning on the obvious stuff).
The real issue here is that intelligence correlates with income to such a degree that progressive income taxation (very common) may already be playing this role.
