Soda Is the New Right-Wing Issue--and Fatsos the New Base
The new thing we are going to hear about, constantly, repetitively, like a nail driving into our heads, is the soda tax.
We'll wake up from our dreams with those words in our head: the soda tax.
The proposal is to put a tax on carbonated sugar drinks because, well, they are valueless and probably pernicious and do nothin' for nobody, and no one loses if they drink less of them, and if they must have them, let's get some benefit for the rest of us. Which, from a tax perspective, is pretty reasonable and benign. Nobody loses, everybody wins.
Except now it is being tried out as a potential wedge issue, a populist theme. Super groovy cool self-satisfied yuppie people, like the president and his health-conscious family, don't drink soda. But gross fat compulsive lacking-all-self-control normal Americans do.
It is an attempt to rally what could be one of the most significant constituencies in America: the fat.
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With the link between soda and obesity now conclusive, consider the damage being done to our children. There should be a fee on soda and other sweetened beverages.
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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Tax the amt. of HFCS and the amt. of carbonation in them not the soda itself.
It'll be an incentive to put sugar back in and lighter carbonation.
Anyone tasted orig. Dr. Pepper will notice the difference, original tastes MUCH better than
the HFCS sweetened over carbonated stuff that' sold everywhere.
I believe there is a study which forecasts that taxes on everything in America will slowly rise to 100 per cent and then flatten out.
If you want to change people's nutritional habits, you have to change the way they think, the things they crave. Every day we're bombarded with enticing ads for things that are bad for us. How about having a panel of experts define some of the worst nutritional choices and then require that advertisements for those products must be made using plus-size and even obese actors/models? That drippy, fatty burger might not look so enticing if the ad were made with people who look like they actually eat them on a regular basis instead of some twig-thin beauty queen who probably regurgitates after every take because one on-camera bite exceeds her daily caloric limits.
it's a no-brainer. Alcohol and cigarettes are bad for you; they are heavily taxed. If you want them you gotta pay a little (or a lot) extra. Heavily sugared drinks are as bad, if not worse, for you, especially because kids will drink them to no end.
They should be taxed. Whether the government is telling you they're bad for you or not is completely irrelevant to the fact that they ARE bad for you and your kids. No one is telling you you can't have them. but if you want them you should pay more, a lot more, for them. End of story.
PS - that anti-soda tax commercial currently airing on TV is insulting to anyone with a working brain.
it is not the govt's responsibility to protect us from ourselves. If someone chooses to drink cokes and lead a sedentary lifestyle that is their choice and they will have to live with the results of that choice. The govt (or more accuratly a pompous bureaucrat) should not be in the position of deciding what is good for Americans to consume and what is bad. This can only lead to more corruption as the food industry lobbies to have their product labled govt approved and exempt from taxes.
So then you're in favor of legalization of all drugs then, Mr Right-wing marine?
I am. I think we should be able to do whatever we want with our own bodies. Purely from a standpoint of individual rights. I don't even think drug abuse would increase if drugs were legal as they would be less glamorous to those bent on rebellion. Before drugs were made illegal we didn't have more drug abuse. It existed, but we had less.
Bingo. They're always for what they're for on principal, until they're not.
RWM, I see your response although it has not been posted. It is somewhat evasive.
Please answer "yes" or "no" to this one.
Do you think your 18 year old child should be able to walk down to the store and buy heroin?
I don't know why you get to see the comments but so be it. I believe that an adult should have the freedom to consume whatever they wish. More directly to answer your question, should heroin be legal, yes I believe it should. Would I want my children to use drugs of any kind? Of course not but it will be my responsibility as a parent to teach my children the dangers of drugs and that they should be avoided just as my parents taught me. Should my child decide to abuse drugs and become a mindless junkie it will be his fault as a man and my failure as a parent and I hope that I would continue to love and support my child despite this addiction I would not demand that you or anyone else pay for his treatment/recovery or anything else.
Are you in favor of legalizing marijuana? If not how do you reconcile that with the opinion you just expressed?
I can see your replies on my comment page. They are evasive. See my question below.
Soda is just plain not good for you. Neither are cigarettes and alcohol (well, a little alcohol is good for you) and both of those are taxed.
Can you survive without soda, alcohol, cigarettes? Absolutely. Will the public still purchase these items if they are taxed? Just watch... they will. But it's a choice they make, they are not required to purchase soda.
Now just don't start taxing milk and fruit.
It is a proven fact that sugar is not the culprit you want to make it. You can burn sugar. You can not burn fat. Those that really want to stay slim or loose weight need to change their eating habits. It's really simple, look at the fat content of your food. Potatoe chips have a ton of fat, a bag of pretzels has none. Hard candy no fat, chocolate tons of fat. Peanuts tons of fat content. Even the oil you use to cook with. Margerine is less.
Exercise is not as hard as you think. Walk a mile a day, if you eat something you shouldn't walk another mile as a balance of getting off your diet. When you start losing that weight you will be able to walk further so go to 2 miles and 3 for going over your diet. Don't count calories count fat content and keep it under 10% that is the key to losing weight and keeping it off.
BTW instead of taxing candy and sodas you should be taxing chips. Don't allow these things to be bought by food stamps.
Sugar and fat can both be burned...but the point is that it often isn't. Adult on-set diabetes is on the rise (and becoming younger in the ages it attacks) and this isn't due to fat, it's due to the high sugar concentration in many of our foods and drinks. Getting 600 calories of sugar in a fountain drink is nearly impossible to burn off while it's in your blood stream and will therefore be stored as fat with the added disadvantage of having spiked your blood sugar in the mean time. Drinks are also much more difficult for the body to self-regulate. You can feel food in your stomach, but you can drink continuously through the day with alost no idea of just how much you've consumed.
I do agree that the bigger problem is people living sedentary lifestyles, however since this is about taxing something that is demonstrably bad with no particular upside I just don't see a probem.
The fact that sodas are cheaper than anything else on the market doesn't help. I have been drinking pepsis since i was 7 yrs old. I am 55 and weigh 130lbs. Where I work sodas are free. A bottle of water cost 99 cents a can soda cost 96 including tax. Your argument of taxing unhealthy items don't hold water because a lot of people are not obese because of just those things a lot of other factors play a part. Depression is one of them. Couch potatoes is another. So think about this, the video games people spend hrs playing (grownups and children) now that is something that does nothing for anyone. Why not tax that.
I would love nothing better than being able to afford things like fruits and vegestables, but the cost is out of my reach. Rice is cheapest and the worse food staple on the market it raises the sugar count higher than even a soda does.
Just because a lot of people who DON'T drink sodas want to tax those that do it doesn't solve a thing. One more point we already pay taxes on sodas, there is no tax on water, but water still cost more than the soda.
Video games actualy do add value, what adds no value at all is IMHO is TV. TV produces mind fog, lazy passivity and depression, with VG you are still interacting, still using your brain, and still gaining skills like learing to recognize difference, hand-eye coordination, problem solving, and more. I agree excess is damaging, but then again excess ANYTHING is bad, even excessive excercize is damaging. I agree VG are not the best, most rewarding thing, but when compared to other forms of entertainment, like watching sports, TV or movies, I would say VG are better than most, they might make you fat and unhealthy if abused, but at least they don't turn you into a mindles zombie like TV watching. BTW i play VG a lot and am actually a consdered a bit on the underweight side, and i don't know any fat people who play VG myself, all my VG friends are slim to normal sized.
Try real whole grain rice in bulk (cheaper). It's good for you. Stay away from the stripped down white stuff.
I'm all for this and taxing candy and crap food....will it help stop people consuming these things? Who knows, but it may bring to some the awareness that they are not just good for you in the long run.
I'm trying to get my husband to stop or at least curb his soda addiction, and that's what it is, addiction to caffine and sugar.
You'd think he would stop all together after he wound up in the hospital with kidney stones and severe dehydration this past summer....I'm still working on him...he'll get there if there is a tax on it...
I doubt it since people on food stamps getting over 500 a month for food. Most of these people spend that on sodas candy and chips. The only good thing about food stamps is that it supports the convienence stores pretty well, they get to sell the stuff even the employees can't afford to buy there. A man came in the other day and bought 12 candy bars with his lone star card and had a balance of over 1000. How many of you actually spend that much on groceries? How many of you have seen the size of these people getting the food stamps ever wonder how food stamps is helping these people to make good choices?
More education and stricter rules on the foodstamps would go a long way to help these people.
More education is a great idea, but restricting food stamps is a dangerously slippery slope. Not a good idea, considering how out-of-control some of our lawmakers are.
The sad thing is, soda, candy, and chips are cheaper than fruits, vegetables, and juices. When healthier foods become cheaper than the crap, then we'll see a weight-and-healthy-eating-habits turnaround in this country.
Being health conscious is unAmerican! And socialist! Real Americans have blubber!
I don't mind it and I have frequently experienced money being tight enough that we had to eat what we could afford that day. But most of the time when it's like that, I tend to make more careful choices. At least I know that I should. When we were kids, soda was considered a luxury. It sounds like it's fixing to be one again. I don't think that's a bad thing.
Politicians only have to go as far as your local liquor store to see how well these "sin taxes" work. What has the outrageous prices of alcohol and cigarettes done to reduce their use?
Not much.
And a tax on soda will not dissway those people who want to from drinking their soft drinks
And it's a myth that soda contributes *that* much to obesity. It may have some contribution, but as someone who is borderline anorexic, and has been drinking 4 cans of soda a day for 10 years+, I can say the link between soda and obesity is specious at best
Soda dehydrates you, and the sugar in it cannot be broken down in the body easily, leading to type II diabetes, ie my sister-in-law who consumer over 12 Pepsis a day and continued to do so, now living on a dialysis machine, plus what it does to your teeth and all the chemicals in it.
See no harm if you drink one every once in awhile, but 10 to 12 a day?
Look, you being the exception doesn't really mean anything. There are thousands of people who smoke and don't get lung cancer, but that doesn't change the fact that you have a much greater scientifically-proven chance of getting lung cancer if you smoke. The point here isn't that obesity will be eliminated if soda is taxed. It's that if taxes are needed to run the country, why not tax something with NO measurable upside and several scientifically proven detriments to the human body? Soda is not going to be illigal, it is just going to cost a couple cents more. Boo hoo.
And believe me I am no great foe of soda. I go through a 12 pack of diet almost daily...I switched to diet when I was told to choose between sugared soda or diabetes at age 19 after blacking out at college. No family history of diabetes, and I have been fine for the years since then with no other diet changes except cutting out those 12 cans of liquid sugar per day. I'd be upset if soda were to be banned or if milk and fruit were to be taxed...but as for a small tax on things with no benefit to society I remain unconcerned, even if I pay it too.
Maybe the proceeds of this tax should go to subsidising fresh vegitables and healthier foods? That's a nice thought.
Fat is where it's at. I wonder where we went wrong and I think I agree with most that it was the election of Reagan that put this country on a course for hell. It was then we put our heads in the energy sand and are now paying the piper. It was also when a collective disdain for government and any attempts at social engineering became chique in the red circle. It was after "There you go again" and the youth and inexperience line that making fun of liberals and in general always trying to tell them what to do became an incessant grind for these people. Put 10 of them in a room togther with 10 chairs. It won;t be 5 minutes before one of them is trying to tell another one what to do. They can't help themselves. They are addicted to even the tiniest amounts of power. They enjoy stepping on ants.
It's disturbing to see so many kids today that are not just fat but obese.
Sin taxes present a potential paradox when the government becomes dependent on the revenues stemming from targeting unvirtuous behavior. Cigarette taxes are an example of where this goes. In California the intent was to use those dollars for cancer prevention and education. Now they don't have a two nickels to rub together. The important question is whether taxation is the best way to modify behavior? If so, what's the marginal cost that makes a difference? Should the revenues go into general funds or be targeted?
In the example of the epidemic of pediatric type 2 diabetes it's reasonable to link high sugar foods and beverages to childhood obesity. Thirty years from now the medical costs of these middle age diabetics will be staggering. Will a few pennies on a can of soda pop make a difference? At what point does government intervention invade privacy? Will we some day punish all people whose self-inflicted diseases put a burden on the taxpayer: smokers, fatsos, couch potatoes. What about cars that belch greenhouse gases into the atmosphere? At the end of the day I endorse both free will and collective responsibility. People can use and abuse their bodies as they see fit. They get to own the consequences. Education and behavior modification are appropriate early interventions. A humane approach remains appropriate when people become sick . We need universal access to care not revenge on the sick.
It seems self-explanatory, and irreducibly productive for society, to tax such items heavily, but make sure the first revenues pay to help anyone damaged by that product. That makes sense with tobacco; alcohol; gambling; it would or will make great sense, for popular illegal drugs, whenever our government grows the nerve to move toward legalizing them; and though a soda tax would hit us pretty hard - I can't drink that poison any more for health reasons, but my wife consumes six or more Diet Cokes a day - I can't think of a reason to argue against it, except that it hurts the wallets of poor people with addictive tendencies and no will power. (But I guess that leads full circle, back to using such tax revenues, to help the people such products damage.)
I'm not so sure that linking the punitive tax to the consequences of the behavior is smart. Besides the paradoxical dependency on the use of the item in question to finance government it makes the financial structure a spaghetti bowl of linked financing and services. My experience in the grant-driven public agency sector taught me that linking funds too tightly to programs made them worthless. Undesignated gifts and grants--hozannah! Designated gifts? We had to extract a 60-80 percent overhead charge to make designated gifts worthwhile. Even then we turned down a lot as they didn't serve the broad mission of the agency.
On a larger level, I find the government's getting into punishing more behaviors a move very much in the wrong direction. From a historical standpoint Prohibition doesn't work. From a medical standpoint this approach leads to punishing or at least blaming the sick. You got lung CA because you smoked! To quote Mike Huckabee, "We're a better country than that." There is still a role for mercy, kindness and charity in our society. While I believe raising a generation of obese children is evidence of bad parenting this is something we can't punish our way out of any more than busting pregnant drug users for child abuse is the right thing to do.
Revenge on the sick? Hardly. More like make people think twice about questionable choices.
My personal grudge is against the tobacco tax... the government is relying on addicts that they helped create, for funding.
First, the government subsidized the tobacco industry, who was busy making their product as addictive as possible.
Now, it's a revenue stream-- a revenue stream that doesn't go to helping people quit smoking, but instead (as an example) funds children's health care.
So if people quit smoking, which is supposed to be one of the goals of the tax, who covers the cost of SCHIP?
A extra few cents won't make most people think twice. If you look at this tax as some kind of motivation to give up bad foods then it will fail...however, since the governement needs taxes I would rather it be the optional pleasures with no upside for society, like soda. I'd rather pay more for my Pepsi and keep admission prices low for the public.
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