A Soda Tax Completely, Utterly, and Totally Unrelated to Individual Choice
An interesting article in Slate today about the social psychology of “sin taxes” and how people in general resent being told what to do. They may, in fact, react by consuming even more of the sinning item than before the nannies intervened, just to prove a point.
Unfortunately, the point of the article seems to be how to implement sin taxes — in this case, a soda tax – without annoying people to the point where the tax is counterproductive. Something about “refram[ing]” the tax so it doesn’t tip people off as to its real purpose. The author concludes with this gem:
If we want to implement a sweetened beverage tax and maximize its effectiveness, the best approach would be to dissociate it from the larger issue of individual choice and focus on its immediate practical benefits, such as the revenue it produces. Over time, we’ll get used to it. We might even wonder why we didn’t do it sooner.
To end on a positive note, many of the comments are striking a distinctly libertarian tone.
Lying and the Federal Government
Speaking of White House gate-crashers Tareq and Michaele Salahi (as we were trying to think of an excuse to do, to increase blog traffic), Slate says they might be guilty of a federal crime. What crime? Well, possibly trespassing on federal property. Or maybe the “broad prohibition on lying to the federal government.” Title 18, section 1001 of the U.S. Code
can be used to prosecute anyone who “knowingly and willfully … falsifies, conceals, or covers up by any trick, scheme, or device a material fact” or “makes any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or representation” to the government. That could include lying about your arrest record on a government job application, claiming a fake deduction on your taxes, or telling someone you’re on the White House invite list when you’re not.
I can’t help wondering, is there any equally broad prohibition on lying by the federal government? If the federal government, or a federal agency, or a federal official “knowingly and willfully … falsifies, conceals, or covers up” information or “makes any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or representation” — about the costs of a new entitlement, or how a candidate for reelection will act in his next term, or case for going to war — is that prohibited? Or are the rules tougher on the ruled than the rulers?
Liberals in Power
Will Saletan writes that he and his colleagues at Slate seem to be increasingly engaged in libertarian sallies at the food police and other nanny statists. “Are we becoming conservative?” he worries, wringing his hands. Not quite:
We’re what we were five or 10 years ago: skeptics and fact-mongers with a bias for personal freedom. It’s the left that’s turning conservative. Well, not conservative, but pushy. Weisberg put his finger on the underlying trend: “Because Democrats hold power at the moment, they face the greater peril of paternalistic overreaching.” Today’s morality cops are less interested in your bedroom than your refrigerator. They’re more likely to berate you for outdoor smoking than for outdoor necking. It isn’t God who hates fags. It’s Michael Bloomberg.
Yes, that’s the same Jacob Weisberg who wrote In Defense of Government and blamed libertarians for the financial collapse. Older and wiser every day.
When Saletan takes on the stretches that the fat-tax advocates have to make to justify government regulation of what we eat, he would have done well to cite Glen Whitman’s Cato paper on paternalism.
And as genuine liberals recoil in horror at the actions of liberals with power, it’s a good time to read Damon Root’s new Cato Policy Report cover story on liberals who fled “right” from the economic and constitutional malfeasance of the New Deal. Let’s hope Saletan’s “new Whiskey Rebellion” spreads beyond the pages of Slate.
HT: Jacob Grier.
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