The Elephant and the Ant

This is why you don't give anybody the authority to take your income and monopolize arbitration.

"Working with the food industry to cut salt intake by nearly 10 percent could prevent hundreds of thousands of heart attacks and strokes over several decades and save the U.S. government $32 billion in healthcare costs, U.S. researchers said on Monday."

The U.S. government wouldn't have to save a damn dime in healthcare costs if it wasn't in the entitlement field in the first place.

"The team estimated that a government-industry effort could cut Americans' salt intake by 9.5 percent."

There is no "government-industry effort" when the former party has compulsory jurisdiction over the latter. As Thomas Sowell put it, "When there is a partnership between an ant and an elephant, who do you suppose makes the decisions?"

The writers of this article know that the above is true, because just a few lines later they write,

"By contrast, a tax on salt would cut salt intake by 6 percent, resulting in 327,892 fewer strokes and 306,173 fewer heart attacks, the team calculated... If cooperation is not voluntary, new regulations on sodium content of processed and prepared foods might be necessary..."

With this said, I must observe that conservative pundits are too late when they talk about the dangers of giving more control to the government over our health matters. This article clearly proves that they already have too much control.