The left’s obsession with controlling how Americans live has reached a new level. This time, it’s not about gas stoves, sugar, or meat — it’s your cell phone. A growing number of liberal thinkers want new taxes on how much time people spend online, all under the banner of saving society from “screen addiction.”

The push began with Bloomberg columnist Matthew Yglesias, who recently floated the idea of a “progressive levy on broadband consumption.” His proposal would essentially make Americans pay more to use the internet and their phones.

Yglesias argued that the government should “discourage the all-you-can-stream ad-supported business model” and instead “consider a progressive levy on broadband consumption, creating something like a return to the early days of cell phones.”

He said that if people were forced to be “mindful of their minutes” again, they might “spend less time watching streaming video and more time doing something more productive.”

In other words, he believes the government should use taxes to pressure Americans into changing their habits — the latest in a long line of so-called “sin taxes” meant to correct people’s behavior.

Author Ward Clark responded to the idea by pointing out how dangerous this logic is. “Sin taxes are and always have been a bad idea,” he said. “It’s not the government’s place to try to manipulate our behavior, unless that behavior is causing harm to someone else.”

Clark, a long-time critic of government overreach, said that personal habits — whether it’s enjoying a cigar, having a drink, or scrolling on a phone — are none of Washington’s business.

He described seeing a family in a restaurant, all buried in their phones during breakfast, barely speaking to each other. “That’s a bit odd,” he said. “But should the government tax this kind of behavior? Bloomberg’s Matthew Yglesias thinks it should. And that’s a dumb idea.”

Yglesias defended his idea as a way to steer people away from “low-value engagement” and toward “more productive” use of technology. He wrote that such a system would still allow tech companies to thrive, but would change their incentives by taxing ad-driven models that rely on endless scrolling.

Clark wasn’t buying it. “First, it’s not the role of government to protect us from ourselves in this manner,” he said. “One could make a case for taxing tobacco, a substance with known risks to health. One could also make a case for taxing booze. But why cell phone use? Are we to tax it because Matthew Yglesias finds it annoying?”

He added that government taxes should be used for essential services, not for social engineering. “The purpose of taxation should be to raise revenues for essential government purposes, not to alter behavior,” Clark said.

He reminded readers that personal responsibility — not government control — is the foundation of freedom. “The left always favors more, not less, control. Always,” Clark said. “Yes, cellular phone use can be a bad thing when taken to extremes. But we are still supposedly a free people.”

Clark pointed out that parenting and personal choices, not government policy, should shape how people use their devices. “For younger generations in particular, it is their parents, not the overbearing hand of government, that should be making that decision.”

In his example, Clark recalled his own conversation with his wife after seeing that silent family at breakfast. “I opined, and she agreed, that the father here should have said, ‘This is a family event. No phones. Put them away.’ That, not a sin tax, is the solution.”

For now, Yglesias’s idea remains only a proposal — but to many conservatives, it’s one more reminder that when the left runs out of things to tax, they start looking at how you live your daily life.