sugar tax

Here is a prime example of policy-making lunacy from those who think they can dictate how people live.  Let's make people stop drinking sugary beverages like soda by putting a huge tax on them.  A paper at the National Bureau of Economic Research demonstrates that these taxes as enacted in four cities, had basically zero impact, in fact only in one city, Philadelphia, did there appear to be any effect on consumption, and other research has shown that is bogus because people just went outside the city limits to pay less for their soda.  These taxes are extremely regressive and do nothing to improve public health.  But don't expect the people in favor of them to show any open-mindedness or recognition of the limits of government's ability to affect individual behavior.