Why Can't We Have More Sin Taxes?

To fund the health care bill we should tax thinks like alcohol, soda, sugar, and trans fats. People would buy less of them. We'd have a healthier America and we'd be able to afford universal health care. Thus improving the average American's health in more ways than one.

Everyone knows that when taxes go up on something like Cigarettes, people buy less of them. No junk food is not as bad as Cigarettes, but it is still far and away the most underrated way to damage a person's health in this country.

I'm not saying to make junk food illegal or anything, just create a five-percent tax on it. Similar to smoking, it would discorage more people from doing it, less people would become addicted to it (don't even tell me people aren't addicted to it. Go to San Antonio, Houston or any other southern city and look around at people. That is the road that the US is headed towards if we don't stop ourselves.)

Alcohol isn't the worst thing in the world, but it is dangerous all the same. A five cent tax won't be that bad.

Is this idea politically viable however? Of course not. Obese people across the country would riot (I'm not kidding.) Instead we have to continue to pretend that obesity is a regular human phenomenon (which it is in a few cases but not the vast majority.) We're going to have to tax something (income tax, overall sales tax, or medical benefits tax) sooner or later and would you rather tax things that are bad for us or things that are good for us?