Associated Press: New York Debates Proposed Ban On Sugary Drinks

Source:FRS FreeState

Another example of blogging on a slow news day, I'm probably just a step away from bloggers block if there's such a thing. And if there isn't, I just invented it and I know I covered this back in June, but New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg apparently has had some vision that he knows how New Yorkers and perhaps Americans in general, how they should live better than the people themselves. He has the classic one size fits all to governing, that if this works for him or other people, that it must work for everyone.

In 2008 the prospect of Mike Bloomberg running for President as an Independent, didn't bother me. He seemed like a classical Northeastern Republican, "get big government out of our wallets and bedrooms" Republican. But now he seems not only believe that big government should be in our wallets, like calling for all of the Bush tax cuts to expire on everyone, including the middle class, New Yorkers even that can't afford a tax hike right now, New Yorkers even that can't afford a new tax hike to go on top of high NYC taxes, to go on top of the high cost of living in New York, but Mayor Bloomberg also wants big government down our throats. Telling us what we can drink and how much we can drink, he's becoming a hero in today's so-called progressive politics.

What New York is attempting to do with soft drinks is another example of prohibition. If New Yorkers can't get large sodas in the city, then they go to Long Island, North Jersey or Connecticut, someplace where people have the freedom to decide how much they can drink and eat. Of course as long as they have the money to pay for it and then if that jurisdiction has a sales tax, they'll end up paying taxes on those products that they buy. Which will go to help that jurisdiction pay for schools, roads, hospitals everything that communities need to be vibrant. 

Tax money that could've otherwise been spent in New York helping them to pay for those services in New York. That's what Progressives have never figured out about prohibition, that just because you tell people they can't do something, doesn't mean they stop doing it. It's just done in other ways and in other areas.  If you think people are living unhealthy and you believe that this unhealthy living is somehow negatively affects the rest of society as a whole and you want to correct that bad behavior, what you should do is incentivize people to correct that behavior. Have them pay a price for living unhealthy. Short of putting them in jail and have them pay a financial cost for living unhealthy. Like taxing soft drinks extra than what you would tax water or milk.