All societies must decide on the amount of government services that best provides for the welfare of the citizenry. When deciding how to finance a given amount of government services, two features of the tax system must be determined-the appropriate tax base and the appropriate tax rate. The goal of pro-growth tax policy is to define a tax base and choose tax rates that finance government expenditures with the least distortionary effect on the economy. A tax system is distortionary when it creates incentives for people to make spending, saving, or investment decisions that are different from the decisions they would make in the absence of taxes. For example, by taxing the sale of apples and not oranges, a tax system would encourage people to consume more oranges and fewer apples than they otherwise would. Similarly, by taxing a family's out-of-pocket health spending but not employer-paid health insurance premiums, the tax system encourages inefficient consumption of health care by households. By comparison, a tax system that taxes investment can create incentives that favor consumption over saving, investment in certain types of capital over others, or certain methods of financing capital investment. In the absence of distortionary taxes, people would have made those decisions based solely on the best and most productive use of those resources.