“I don’t smoke,” the Republican legislator from Sussex, Morris and Hunterdon Counties says,   “So you might think I would support the new “sin” tax she says the Obama administration is going to put on tobacco products.  She says she knows the administration is thinking about it and if it does she won’t support it.

    “If something is so deadly that it requires government intervention – like toxic waste – we should hold a debate, take a vote, and ban it not tax it, she said in a press release today..

     She’s against experts, researchers and physicians too, especially those speaking for the government. “Sugar is becoming the new tobacco,” she said. “Last season the fashionable consumer was told it was good to oppose food with trans fats.  It’s always something.  Experts are put forward by government-funded “activists” to explain why a product is bad for us.  So the argument goes that if it’s “bad,” then the government must do something to dissuade consumers from buying it.  Therefore, they say, a “sin” tax is needed to keep us safe and to fund experts and activists to get out more information to consumers – with money going to this or that, as directed by the politicians who enact the tax.

     “In the post-WWII era, cigarette advertisements had endorsements by physicians touting the medical virtues of tobacco.  Since then, the medical community has changed its assessment and tobacco is among the first rank of those harmful products long used by consumers.

     “Trans fats made a big splash a couple years ago – and we saw experts and activists trotted out to support efforts by governments, large and small, to impose a “sin” tax on the offending substance.  Now it appears that sugar is the next “sin” – as New York proposes to tax sugary soft drinks.  Beef and diary are also being eyed as “sinful” – on account of the quite natural gas of cattle – and there’s talk of imposing a $175 per cow tax.  My colleagues, Senator Oroho and Assemblyman Chiusano, and I oppose this absurd, business killing tax and we are introducing a resolution asking the EPA Administrator not to impose it (ACR-218).  Fast food – that standby meal of every working mom on the run – is being targeted for a myriad of “sins”, including the beef and cooking oil used, and the waste paper they create.

     “In these times of cash-strapped governments and revenue shortfalls, I have a feeling we’re going to see a great many new “sins” revealed that are in need of taxing.

      “Government is going to become a great big church in which we’re all forced to attend long successions of sermons by long-winded politicos – attended by a choir made up of experts, activists, and bureaucrats.  Oh yes, there’s one big difference between this church and the one you are used to: It’s the government, so if you don’t put your money in the collection plate they send someone to collect it.

     “As you have probably guessed, I have a problem with all of this.  Government should allow the free access of information so that consumers can get what they need to make up their minds about a product.  Consumers should not buy products if they cannot determine their safety.    
      “Calling something a “sin”, attaching a tax to it, then saying that you are doing so for the collective good, is too big a temptation for government.  With the “sin” tax, they get to tax us, ask for credit for doing so, and then redistribute the resulting revenue to targeted constituencies to essentially buy votes.

      “Freedom, the right to make up our own minds and then to choose accordingly, is what marks us as Americans.  “Sin” taxes run counter to that ideal.  But we should brace ourselves, because in the short-term I think we’re going to see a big emphasis on “sin” and very little on freedom.