Yeah, screw those poor drinkers, smokers and drivers!
Well, no, they'd be screwed if they wouldn't have acces to affordable healthcare (which, let's face it, smokers are more likely to need) or education. Also, taxing these things, all of which have undesirable effects, is likely to function as an additional encouragment for people to stop smoking, drink responsibly, or drive less and use alternative modes of transportation more.
I don't object to sales tax hikes but that's always struck me as sort of a naive argument considering that if people actually did quit there would be no revenue to collect.
