The Federal Reserves implements interest rate increases by selling the bonds that they own (bought in the past) in the market in exchange for cash ("Open Market

The Federal Reserves implements interest rate increases by selling the bonds that they own (bought in the past) in the market in exchange for cash ("Open Market Operations"). This takes cash out of the hand of the public (in exchange for cash that can be spent in the future). That's about as direct as it gets. Removing cash in the public's hand via taxation has several drawbacks, as mentioned by other posters. It's a very slow legislative process, because it has much more direct distributional effects (who is going to be taxed?). Additionally, most academic economists believe more taxation reduces real, as opposed to nominal, economic activity ("distortionary effects of taxation").