Some taxes just might make us healthier.

Benjamin Franklin, in 1789, pointed out that nothing is certain but death and taxes. Though to be fair, the same dismal sentiment had already popped up in 1726, in Daniel Defoe’s The Political History of the Devil. It’s a phrase on many of our minds on income tax day.

A new breed of taxes, however, now has the potential to make us both healthier and longer-lived. The latest of these went into effect this month inside the Navajo Nation, a 27,000-square-mile reservation home to 250,000 people, with territory extending into Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico. Known as the Healthy Diné Nation Act, this is the first U.S. tax imposed on both sugary drinks and