Obama chooses between cigarettes, soda and booze

This final note today, in which President Obama chooses between cigarettes, soda and booze.

David Leonhardt points out on the New York Times website this afternoon that in the Obama budget, the President prefers taxes on tobacco over those on soft drinks and alcohol. The tax on a pack of smokes would just about double under the president’s plan, to almost $2 a pack. Federal taxes on soda and beer, wine and hard liquor, meanwhile, haven’t budged in 20 years or more.

Pick your sin, I suppose.