From the Archives: Taxing Sin

Because of two complementary desires—the desire to tell other people what they are doing wrong and the desire to extract people's money for government spending—sin taxes aren't going away anytime soon.

Cigarettes and cigars are under fire, drugs are legalized so we can tax them to get people to consume less (huh?), governments sponsor lotteries to make it easier for people to feed their gambling addiction (huh?), added sweeteners are scheduled to appear on the front of every food package and may be a sin along with ultra processed foods, and who knows how long it will be before driving a gas driven car will be a new sin.

Read more here.