(CNSNews.com) - The Health and Human Services Department plans to spend $650 million tax dollars encouraging Americans to develop "healthful lifestyle habits."
Soda tax?
 In a recent interview with “Men’s Health” magazine, President Barack Obama said the idea of taxing soda and sugary drinks is something “that we should be exploring.”
 "There's no doubt that our kids drink way too much soda,” Obama said in the interview released last week. “And every study that's been done about obesity shows that there is as high a correlation between increased soda consumption and obesity as just about anything else."
 This week, the “New England Journal of Medicine” called for a penny-per-ounce tax on soda.
 But critics, including the American Beverage Association, argue that a soda tax won’t reduce obesity. “You just can’t tax someone to better health,” the group argues. It says a soft drink tax “has far more to do with a money grab by big government to pay for even bigger government.”
 The Center for Consumer Freedom, a food and restaurant industry group, points to an analysis showing that, to actually make a dent in the obesity rates, Congress would need a 1,200 percent tax on soda – which works out to $9 in tax on a 75-cent can.
 "The tax code shouldn't be a tool for social engineering," said J. Justin Wilson, senior research analyst at the Center. "Nor should it be an instrument for penalizing individuals who make food choices that some people in government don't like."