yaleruddcenter.org:
Taxes on sugared beverages can generate considerable revenue for states, cities, and the nation. This calculator produces expected revenue by allowing the user to list the tax per ounce and the type of beverages to be taxed.
Adam Hanft: I'd Like to Buy the World a Coke - And Slap It With a Big Fat Sugar Tax
I wouldn't be surprised at all if local sugar-and-fructose taxes start appearing in city after city, as one politician after another races to jump on the bandwagon.
Michael Wolff: Soda Is the New Right-Wing Issue--and Fatsos the New Base
The soda tax is being tried out as a potential wedge issue, a populist theme. Super groovy cool self-satisfied yuppie people don't drink soda. But gross fat compulsive lacking-all-self-control normal Americans do.
Michael F. Jacobson: Fizzy Math: Tax Soda to Pay for Health Care and Prevention
Americans are already taxed by soda. Out of every paycheck, and on every April 15, we're each paying to treat diseases promoted by the overconsumption of these uniquely worthless drinks.
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We tax beer , whiskey , wine , and cigarettes . Why not tax soda ??
The tax offsets the medical costs to treat diabetes , tooth decay , and obesity.
There is a commercial/ad currently airing wherein the "Mother" admonishes that the food she buys to feed her family must not be taxed.
Outrageous! Soda and faux juice drinks are not food nor are they substitutes for nutritious choices for a family that you love. For example, if families spent the dollars they have on peanut butter and jelly and a piece of real fruit for lunch, as opposed to lunch meat, faux cheese and chips, they could then afford real juice for their children. The change would result in a healthier lunch, no additional taxes, and additional savings on your grocery bills.
Drink water. From the tap (provided it's not polluted). Issue solved. Health and Dental costs down, to boot!
Years ago we used to have a system where when you bought soda bottles you could bring them back and get a nickel or dime.
Then they came up with that adage: "No deposit, no return"
Now we have recycling which means that someone else gets paid for your bottles..er now cans.
why not a calculator on how much it's going to cost you instead of how much revenue you're gonna steal from othrs?
I want tax's on hummus. That stuff is horrid.
Billions and Billions is the answer. I gave it up 14 years ago but not before it really made my teeth bad. The folks here in Rural Western NY still drink it by the gallons. It's horrible it makes all the kids fat and rots their teeth.
By the way, you all noted that the products to be taxed are:
"soft drinks, fruit beverages, sports drinks, ready-to-drink (RTD) tea, flavored/enhanced water, energy drinks, and RTD coffee."
Sales taxes of any sort are a way to shift the tax burden from corporations and rich individuals to poor persons.
The shame of this article is that it asks how much money you would get: unless you are rich, the calculator shows how much money it would cost, which would be put to better use if left in the hands of the people and not taken to fund government.
I don't think they are talking about stopping the push to tax the 1% a small increase on soda or drinks is a small price to pay for Public Option Health Care which this is aimed at.
Really? I think that if the funds are necessary, they should come out of a tax on the income of the rich, not a tax on the consumption of the poor.
If you don't see the difference, then you'll have no objection to the former.
consumers ultimally pay all taxes so this post makes no sense
What absolute nonsense!
Under this nonsense, the rich are laughing all the way to the bank as taxes are shifted from the income of the rich and the income of their corporations to the consumption of the poor.
The sugars, er hi fructose corn syrup is at the heart of health issues. All the beverages listed use either HFCS or sugar substituetes that are also unhealthy. Not to mention the carbonated water.
This is not a tax on poor people and their food budget. It is an tax on an unhealthy substance.
And if you consider these beverages as "Food" you are as deluded as the characters in the commercials the beverage companies are putting out.
I love Mountain Dew. I also know it is not healthy.
Does that logic actually work in your head? A sales tax is by definition a regressive tax that burdens the poor with taxes and favors the rich.
But you can just close your eyes, and like a very young child, convince yourself that your game of pretend is real as you pretend that you are not taxing the poor, you are taxing an unhealthy substance?
Last I heard, unhealthy substances are not persons in the law, they have no property or rights, they cannot pay taxes, child.
If money is needed for health care (it is not actually needed, the health care envelope in the US is more than generous enough to pay for all health care with money left over, but if your argument is that the pie must grow even larger, tax the rich, not the poor.
And, before you suggest taxing HFCS, first remove all subsidies. Imagine, the government paying to subsidize the production of something the poor should be taxed so that they won't consume. It is highly inefficient, no government or business should be run like this.
And then, after you have removed all the subsidies, if you still don't like HFCS, ban it. That's right, ban it, don't tax it.
And, by the way, the proposal is to not tax drinks with HFCS substitutes, that's right, to push the poor from HFCS to what you term are unhealthy substitutes.
By the way, I never drink soda. Never have. Don't mind if you do.
i wonder when the air tax is coming?
If only we could tax smugness
The way my fat college roommate downed soda we probably could have payed off the bail-outs by now.
"Tax automobile drivers. A mileage tax would be a good start. Tax every mile driven"
Bad idea get rid of corn and soy subsidies.
A tax on sugared beverages would cost myself and the wife essentially zero $'s per year,... I drink soda only once every month or two, don't drink high-fructose corn syrup crapola at all, and neither does she.
Go right ahead and tax it,... we don't need to be eating all the sugar anyway.
Better yet - instead of raising some sort of consumption tax - how about eliminating the subsidies we give the sugar industry and the corn syrup industries and using that money for something useful?
Just a thought.
freedom diminished for Americans , Lets just eliminate taxes for the rich that seemed to work so well under Bush and Ronnie..oh and side note to redhead 61...tea and coffee are on the list! Once we let government tax a single commodity in order to "help" us we stepped off the cliff and there is no return to freedom. Smokers quit smoking so those revenues dropped so govt raises taxes on cigarettes and more smokers quit ,now they are setting sights on soda? and when America stops drinking Coke & Pepsi what will they tax next? I hear breathing the air downwind of coal powerplants is bad for people maybe we need to tax breathing?
Tax automobile drivers. A mileage tax would be a good start. Tax every mile driven.
Overly simplistic curiousasheck,...
So,... would you tax at a flat rate per mile,... or prorate it by vehicle type & vehicle milage? For example,... my Economy-car Mazda that gets ~38mpg day in day out at the same rate as some yahoo in a Hummer getting maybe 15mpg & doing much more road damage with the larger car?
I am not inherently opposed to a milage tax per se, but taxing gallons used would seem a wiser choice and more inclined to encourage use of higher milage vehicles, ride-sharing and such.
You're pretty quick to tax other people as long as it doesn't affect you, pal. How about I come over to your house, root through your closets and cabinets and pantries and garage, and find a bunch of stuff you use that I don't, and we'll tax THAT? How's that sound?
I can't believe how many otherwise progressive people are in favor of clearly regressive taxes that will sit heavily on the shoulders of lower-income Americans in the name of nebulous health benefits. Where are the calls for an increase the tax on wine or 'luxury' cheese?
I will gladly shoulder my part of the load, but I want that load spread evenly, fairly, progressively. Not based on what I chose to drink with my dinner. Clean up the income tax , index it fairly; a fair corporate tax in line with competing economies, applied evenly. Tax investments and capital gains fairly and evenly. Then, when we need more tax revenue, increase the rates progressively. Stop talking about finding new "things" to tax.
As for the mile tax? I'd be opposed to that, too. I already pay a per gallon tax, as does everyone else. And before you jump to any conclusions, I drive a Jetta TDI with BlueTec diesel, the 2009 Green Car of the Year, and I'm getting about 42 mpg. I drink diet soda, which will somehow also be taxed as a way to prevent obesity. It's a wonderful world.
So would a gov't bureaucrat check your car every night to see how far you've driven? You must really love the State, and they love... to enslave you.
No, they'll put an RFID chip in your car, and every time you pass a red light, it would transmit how many miles you've driven -- and how fast, and with how many people, and where you stopped -- to the Big Gummint Database that's kept under Mt. Rushmore.
Oh, wait, EZ-Pass already does that.
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Posted: 10- 4-09 11:53 PM