Our colleagues over at PJ Media have another blast from the past for former Big Apple Mayor (and newly minted presidential candidate) Michael Bloomberg. Demonstrating yet again his lengthy history of believing that the government should control each and every aspect of your life for your own good, this clip shows Bloomberg explaining why you absolutely need to hit poor people with sin taxes. You know… to save them from their own stupidity and vices.

Just watch this video in which Bloomberg basically explains that it’s a great idea to tax the poor because higher taxes mean they have less money to hurt themselves. Or something.

“[Some] say, well, ‘taxes are regressive.’ But in this case, yes they are, that’s the good thing about them,” Bloomberg said at the IMF’s 2018 Spring Meeting about taxes on sugary drinks and such. “Because the problem is in people that don’t have a lot of money. And so higher taxes should have a bigger impact on their behavior and how they deal with themselves.”

In other words, Bloomberg wants to use taxes to make people behave in a way he thinks is best for them. It’s Daddy Michael!

Let’s go to the video, as this segment is too priceless for words.

To his credit, Michael Bloomberg is nothing if not consistent. Listen to how he justifies the idea of a soda tax that would disproportionately affect the poorest consumers. When someone suggests that Democrats shouldn’t be taxing the poor, he explains that the poor are the ideal people to tax because, having less money, taxes will make a bigger impact on their lives.

“The question is: do you want to pander to those people or do you want to get them to live longer?” he said. “And there’s just no question. If you raise taxes on full sugary drinks, for example, 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.”

The reality, of course, is very different. Remember when Philadelphia passed their soda tax? Sales plummeted by 51% in Philadelphia, but rose in the suburbs where the tax wasn’t being applied. That meant lost revenue (and jobs) for local grocery stores, but not much of an impact on the amount of soda people were drinking. The same thing happened in Chicago when Cook County passed a tax like that.

But Big Daddy Bloomberg knows what’s best for you. Poor people can’t be trusted to decide what they want to drink. Nobody should have a firearm to defend themselves. And if you use any words that people don’t like, the government should impose a fine on you.

Michael Bloomberg has already come out and issued an apology for lowering violent crime rates in New York City when he was mayor. Will he now come out and find a way to apologize for taxing the poor? After all, Democrats in 2019 are supposed to be all about eating the rich, aren’t they?