A tax on Soda

http://www.grist.org/article/2011-02-07-industry-funded-super-bowl-ad-rails-against-the-non-existent-sod


The above mentioned article highlights a super bowl commercial I somehow missed.  In it a woman is pushing a cart through the supermarket while railing against the notion of a sin tax on soda and other sweetened beverages.


I'm no fan of taxes in general.  Though I hold a special degree of enmity for sin taxes, those taxes designed to curb consumption of products deemed "bad for you."  I'm not sure where the idea of a sin tax originated.  Wikipedia has suggested that Adam Smith alluded to the topic in his book, "The Wealth of Nations" Though he may have been referring to a sumptuary law, a law "intended to curb extravagance." (http://www.answers.com/topic/sumptuary-law)


I am of the mind that government creates more problems than it solves.  The term blowback is used in foreign policy circles to describe the unintended consequences of government action.  Robert LeFevre's quote that, "Government is a disease masquerading as its own cure" seems apt in this case.  


No where is this truer than when government meddles in human vice.  The idea of a cigarette filter was thought to  lessen its negative effect on health.  It also allowed cigarette makers to use less tobacco while charging more for a "healthy smoke."  The irony is that all the while government is subsidizing tobacco farmers.


Its is because of Richard Nixon's agricultural policy that corn has become such a ubiquitous ingredient in our modern food system.  If the political will existed to learn from history we might actually solve the blight of cheap corn.  The solution is as easy as end the subsidies.