With the Maine Legislature recently in the throes of trying to balance the budget and Congress struggling with an increasing deficit, this seems like the right time to put in a good word for taxes.

A good word? And for taxes? Yes, indeed.

Politicians have set this trap for themselves when they declare all taxes invariably bad. President George H.W. Bush found that to his dismay when he decided a tax increase was necessary despite his famous “read my lips” declaration that he never would do anything of the sort.

His son, President George W. Bush, stumbled into the same trap when he built his 2000 campaign on a program of huge tax cuts. It seemed to make sense, considering the budgetary surplus he was inheriting. But war and recession turned things upside down, and even some conservatives have begun to worry about the soaring deficit and its burden on future generations. Here in Maine, Gov. Baldacci has also struggled under a pledge of no new taxes.

Taxes have always been an irritant. But it took a concerted drive by the conservative movement to bring hatred of taxes to its present state. How this current obsession came to dominate American politics is a main theme of a paperback best seller that was published in 2004 as a handbook to help liberals regain control of the White House and Congress. They lost, but the book can help both liberals and conservatives understand why. George Lakoff’s “Don’t Think of an Elephant: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate” says conservative think tanks had been thinking up loaded phrases for 40 years.

Mr. Lakoff, a Berkeley cognitive scientist, cites Mr. Bush’s repeated use of the phrase “tax relief” as a way of framing the debate in a certain way. As Mr. Lakoff puts it, “For there to be relief there must be an affliction, an afflicted party, and a reliever, who removes the affliction and is therefore a hero. And if people try to stop the hero, those people are villains for trying to prevent relief.”

Soon the mainstream media picked up the phrase, and not just FOX, but CNN, NBC and The New York Times. Even the Democrats used it when they presented their alternative plan.

For the liberals, the solution is to stop calling tax cutting “tax relief.” Then make sure the money currently taxed is well-spent before suggesting any others.

When we buy a steak or a lobster, we pay for it, without sneering at the payment as if it’s some sort of imposition and demanding relief. Why not treat government services the same way?