Sin Taxes Are Not About The Sin

My karmic liege Seth Godin has found a way under my skin again. He’s assumed the position that soda taxes have merit. To me, the soda tax (and sin taxes in general) encapsulates everything that is bad about government. Here’s the usual process –

1. Decide you need more money.
2. Find a problem ripe for exploitation.
3. Decide the source of the problem lies in consumption of a legal product.
4. Find a sympathetic spokesperson – usually a victim backed up by a scientist or doctor.
5. Crank up the propaganda.
6. Get the bill passed – usually by promising to fund a program to help those afflicted by the product being taxed -- for example, to fund an anti-smoking campaign aimed at teens. If that fails, exploit a budget crisis.
7. Kill the program with the next budget crisis, but keep the tax. After all, don’t our politicians deserve a raise? This is where the spokesperson in #4 gets bought off or made to look like a crazy in the media.
8. Repeat.

Do I sound cynical? One could interpret the following statement as cynical also --

The benefit of a tax is that it affects you and your competitors at the same time, so you all benefit from doing the right thing, as opposed to having to compete against someone who doesn't care as much as you do.

It runs a bit counter to the “price doesn’t matter as much as the story” logic that I’m used to hearing.

And no, I’m not a hater.