Michael Bloomberg is rich. He’s also in politics — a public health crusader.
And, for years, he “has personally funded and promoted all sorts of regressive taxes and regulations in an attempt to push people around,” the folks at Americans for Tax Reform tell us. “He uses the coercive power of the government to force people to live their lives as he sees fit.”
Onstage at a globalist event, One-on-One with Christine Lagarde — who is managing director of the International Monetary Fund — Bloomberg blurts out his approach to government policy regarding what he calls “those people.”
“If you raise taxes on full sugary drinks,” he says, “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.”
Against the charge often made that such taxes fall heaviest upon the poor, he is forthright. Regressive? “That’s the good thing about them because the problem is in people that don’t have a lot of money.”
Notice that he is not talking about a public service campaign to help people learn how to drink (and eat) better. And he is not talking about removing all the government policies that have encouraged bad eating and drinking habits (as well as lethargy) — the government programs to encourage the overuse of high fructose corn syrup; the welfare state’s poverty trap that stifles life at the lower incomes; the subsidized consumption of food and drink — he wants to add another government program.
He can only see betterment by increased governmental bullying.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
2 replies on “Brave New Paternalism”
When all you have is a hammer then every problem looks like it’s a nail. Bloomberg can’t see that any other solution that doesn’t involve government control.
The word ‘crusader’ should be italicized. Bloomberg’s programs have absolutely nothing to do with public health…