And then attach a “sin tax” to that sinful eating.

The sputtering economy has caused an increase in prices of many staples including gasoline, rice, ice cream, even beer. Now some lawmakers in New Jersey are considering taking food taxes a step further and install a proverbial “sin” tax on fast food. . . .

The thought of taxing a Big Mac or a Wendy’s burger came up at a New Jersey Hospital Association meeting where Gov. Jon S. Corzine was asked if it could be an option to help fund struggling hospitals. At the meeting, he reportedly called it a “constructive suggestion.”

For years we citizens have gone along with politicians as they’ve used the tax code for social engineering projects.  Rather than seeing taxes as nothing more than a way to raise revenue for the necessary functions of government, politicians have started using the tax code as a way to make people do what they want them to do.

When politicians want you to buy a hybrid, for instance, they make the sale price of hybrid vehicles deductible.  When they want you to stop smoking, they put a big, fat excise tax on tobacco.  In this manner they use the tax code to control us, and we let them when it was just greenies getting a tax deduction or smokers being hit with big taxes.

But now government, as is its wont, is expanding this use of tax code as a tool for social engineering and I don’t think many Americans are going to be happy with the consequences.  Which will make the hypocrites as most of them went along with previous taxes-as-control efforts.

I guess things are always different when the shoe is on the other foot.