"taxing specific behaviors is supposed to only be used to fund things caused by that behavior" That might be what people say but that's a horrible idea from a

"taxing specific behaviors is supposed to only be used to fund things caused by that behavior" That might be what people say but that's a horrible idea from a governmental perspective. There's nothing that says that the amount of money that can possibly extracted by taxing a thing is the right amount for combating it. If something is taxed enough to double or triple it's official price then smuggling will start to develop. And even if you were to raise taxes enough to instantly stop all new smoking you'd still have to care for people whose lungs have been damaged by cancer somehow. And in general introducing coupling between taxes and expenditures needlessly complicates the budgetary process. It's a recipe for government sclerosis if you take it too far with people thinking that, e.g., they can't invest in public transit because then road taxes would go down, but the roads are needed for emergency vehicles regardless of commuting and road maintenance isn't anything like linear with use. Tax things because you want people to do them less and because that lets you lower taxes on things you don't want to discourage.