Soda for Food Stamps

No, you don't. "No soda". There, you're done. Not every change has to beget more change.

As I mentioned, Illinois (and I assume some other states) charges soda and candy at a different tax rate than groceries. This hasn't led to some state-wide chaos of determining what the tax rate of caramel apples should be or thrown the tax code into disarray over flavored water. They decided "soda and candy get standard taxes" and that was it. It may be "arbitrary" but it's not "ever changing".

That's all well and good for you mustachioed sausage and pirogi eaters, but these are obviously not direct parallels. Taxing at a higher rate and very incrementally increasing the price of an item already not really purchased based on price (no one gives a **** that soda costs 14 cents a metric ton to produce) is not akin to literally legislating customers for that product out of existence, and thus, because of the increased severity of the statutory penalty, should also meet a higher standard for enactment. We can agree that taxing beer an additional 5 cents a bottle and the 18th amendment aren't really comparable, can't we?

Also, your piddly little state is widely known to be a hotbed of socialism. In Real America; Honey Boo Boo America, this sort of thing will be met with armed revolt.

Are you ready for that blood on your hands, Joph? Because, let me tell you, no amount of Green River is going to wash it off, son.