[MMM]

Clint, you keep using "slippery slope" arguments, and it isn't really working.

Taking gasoline helps pay for highway and road maintenance. Where I live the taxes for cigarettes helps pay for treatments for smoking-related diseases (especially for people who can't afford the treatments). The increasing taxes also make smoking less attractive, especially for young people. When i was in high school cigarettes were about $1.50 a pack. Now they are about $5.00. By eliminating the high schooler market you are eliminating the future cost of paying for these people 30 years down the line when smoking is killing them.

Taxes on liquor pay for alcohol rehabilitation programs.

These taxes, for the most part, aren't preventing people access, but what they do is provide assistance when their vice gets the best of them. Why that wouldn't be applied to 100% non-healthy items like candy bars and cola is confusing to me. Like whiskey or cigarettes, cola is a luxury item. It cannot be argued there are any healthful benefits to drinking cola, or that taxing it a few cents a can would be preventative in allowing people to drink it. However, that tax could go directly to programs that help overweight folks or diabetics with their problems.

Just because something is a government program doesn't mean is it is a black hole of wasted money.