Higher taxes do genuinely restrict economic growth, so it's not like raising taxes is a magic bullet.
Personally, I think there is plenty of grift and wasteful expenditure we could look at addressing first, especially within the healthcare and defense portfolios.
Not as much as having insufficient resources dedicated to the education of the young hurts economic growth (long term).
I agree not using the world proven efficient healthcare strategy of universal coverage is pretty stupid economically, as is spending a trillion USD per annum on the military. But we are so rich these mistakes can be absorbed for surprisingly long.
Personally, I think there is plenty of grift and wasteful expenditure we could look at addressing first, especially within the healthcare and defense portfolios.