Bloomberg can try to sugarcoat this all he wants but NYC's proposed ban on the sale of large soda drinks over 16 oz, which is supposed to save people from their own destructive impulses, is yet another example of the ever growing nanny-state.  Obviously confused as to which country he lives in, Mayor Bloomberg says: "We're not taking away anybody's right to do things, we're simply forcing you to understand that you have to make the conscious decision to go from one cup to another cup."  Aside from the lost freedoms involved, this should make the trash collectors union happy. 

While Bloomberg and the government have absolutely no business "forcing" people to do such things, the Mayor actually inadvertently makes the case for why we need "forced" limited government.

When questioned about his nanny-state intrusion Bloomberg stated: 

"The idea here is, you tend to eat all the food in the container in front of you," Bloomberg said on MSNBC Thursday afternoon. "If it's a bigger container, you eat more. If somebody put it in a smaller glass or plate or bowl in front of you, you would eat less."

The amount of food or beverage that people pay for and then consume using their own money is nobody's business but their own.  What is everybody's business though, is the ever expanding colossal girth of the Federal Government due to its voracious appetite for taxpayers' money.  Isn't it about time that the government is placed on a "forced" diet for the health of the entire nation?

Bloomberg's logic equally applies to government spending as well.  You see, the government tends to "eat" all of the tax dollars that are placed in front of it.  If it's a bigger "container" of taxes, it "eats" more.  If a smaller "container" of taxes were placed in front of the government, it would be forced to "eat" less.  But without some sort of "forced" restraint, the government has the ability to just borrow or print more dollars for its consumption.

The only way to "force" this tax diet would be with a Constitutional Amendment to cap spending as a percent of GDP such as what Milton Friedman had proposed in Free to Choose or like the Spending Limitation Amendment (SLA) as proposed in 2010 by Reps. Mike Pence, Jeb Hensarling, and John Campbell. 

If we're truly interested in a healthy nation, instead of the government limiting consumers choices (read freedoms) to things like a maximum 16oz soda, why don't we instead limit the Federal Government's choice to a maximum of 16% of the GDP?  Otherwise, the way things are going, this behemoth is going to explode.  Try as it may the media can only sugarcoat these economic numbers for so long. 

President Obama did inherit an already obese Federal Government, but despite the claims   by some that he placed it on a healthy diet, the truth of the matter is that Obama actually super-sized virtually everything.

Scott blogs at www.politiseeds.com