Bloomberg: We need to levy painful taxes against the poor - to control their behavior - for their own good

While you were eating your Turkey, stuffing, and gravy – which you shouldn’t have been allowed to eat because it’s bad for you – an old video was going viral on Twitter and Facebook. It was originally shot at the IMF’s 2018 Spring Meeting, but was given new life by the folks over at PJ Media.  In it, newly announced 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg discusses taxation.

More specifically, he talks about how onerous taxes can be used to alter the behavior of the poor, because they’ll feel the impact more acutely than the rich.

“[Some] say, well, ‘taxes are regressive.’ But in this case, yes they are, that’s the good thing about them. Because the problem is in people that don’t have a lot of money. And so higher taxes should have a bigger impact on their behavior and how they deal with themselves.”

So I listen to people saying, ‘Oh, we don’t want to tax the poor.’ Well, we want the poor to live longer so that they can get an education and enjoy life. That’s why you do want to do exactly what a lot of people say you don’t want to do.

The question is: do you want to pander to those people or do you want to get them to live longer?” he continued. “And there’s just no question. If you raise taxes on full sugary drinks, for example, they will drink less. And there’s just no question that full sugar drinks are one of the major contributors to obesity, and obesity is one of the major contributors to heart disease and cancer and a variety of other things.”

In other words, you poor, little, wretches are too stupid to take care of yourselves, so Nanny Bloomberg is going to hit you in the pocketbook until you change. That’s a spectacular level of arrogance – the kind thing that politicians are usually smart enough not to say. Bloomberg’s reputation for looking down on his supposed inferiors is apparently well-earned.

Before some argues that he has a point about the detrimental effects of sugary soda, allow me to agree.  Yes. They’re bad for you.  The amount of sugar Americans intake is generally pretty shocking.

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However, that’s none of Bloomberg’s business. We aren’t subjects in this country. What we eat is an individual choice, and the consequences of those decisions should be ours to bear. It’s not government’s job to run a taxation-based behavior modification op.

More importantly, progressives like Bloomberg are desperate to apply this same concept to virtually anything they don’t like.  They’ve already floated similar plans regarding other types of foods, guns, and even how many miles you travel on the nation’s roads. Bloomberg might be the only one dumb enough to openly admit what they want to do, but deep down, they all agree with this plan.

…And they all look down on the ‘great unwashed masses’ precisely the way Bloomberg does.