Posted on 11/29/2012 11:05:53 PM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
Larry Summers, chair of the White House National Economic Council when the 2009 stimulus was developed, suggested that President Obama will eventually tax and regulate junk food to drive people to eat more healthily — although he dinged First Lady Michelle Obama’s healthy foods initiative.
“I think there is no question that the way Americans eat and what Americans weigh is a big contributor to health problems and it’s a big contributor to health costs,” Summers said on Morning Joe today.It’s not the agenda now, but I think at some point you’re going to see tax measures and regulatory measures that are going to be directed at helping people be healthier. That’s just going to happen and I think it’s probably a good thing when it does.”
Summers this agenda to anti-cigarette policies. “[J]ust as we have over time done things with respect to tobacco that are very constructive and that are saving hundreds of thousands of people’s lives, that kind of agenda is going to come to other aspects of public health, including the way people eat,” he said.
Curiously, though, Summers took an oblique shot at the results of Mrs. Obama’s overhaul of the school lunch menu as part of her effort to fight child obesity.
“Should kids be going hungry at lunch because they can’t have any good food — any food they like in the schools?” he asked rhetorically. “You can obviously take it too far and you have to be careful.”
In September, Kansas students released a Youtube video parody of the song, “We are Young,” called “We are hungry” that protested the new federal guidelines for school lunches.
The Communists are using illegals to undermine the middle class. After all, 0bamatollah is one.
And with his reelection, that undermining is really starting to pick up again!
...”And Larry is just so damn skinny! Being serious; Larry is fat, according to Larry it’s because Larry eats junk food, so Larry is also rich, so how much would you have to tax junk food to get rich Larry to eat more healthy?”...
Do not forget..Larry’s law is for you/us only..He lives above his law, therefore, he gets all the junk food he wants. It is only a matter of time until people will only be allowed a fixed number of calories per day..One size fits all. And, we will have to get our meager supply at the local government outlet. Then, they can starve whomever they please..I used to think my Mother was a little crazy when she worried about a day when our food supply would not be there or would be used as a government tool. Now, I think she was a genius to feel concern about such a thing in America. It is going to take real resolve to turn around the madness and trying to regulate things like junkfood is just a crazy distraction from the horrific real problems we face. It is a waste of anyone’s time to even consider it when so many other things are going wrong with people. How about thinking about the kids who come to school with bedbug bites on them?..Little ones who worry that they might not get their weekend backpack of food to take home because the Mother, for whatever reason, does not provide enough food there. It is not government taking care of these problems. The churches, teachers and communities are doing it. These children need food and comfort and if a piece of junkfood appears in that backpack, so much the better. These Harvard so called, experts are FOOLS looking to be tin horn dictators!
They are saving hundreds of thousands from a gruesome tobacco death so they can die EVEN MORE prematurely from starvation in a global economic collapse that kills hundreds of millions if not billions. Only brain dead libtards could do crap like this. Only brain dead libtard voters would vote this kind of “intellect” into a position of authority.
Sarcasm, the new reality ;D!
squirrel dogs??? ;))))
Yes it was coordinated.
Dimrat govt attacks from the top,
Dimrat unions attacks from the bottom.
Expect to see a lot more of this next year.
baraq has more flexibility.
Wonder what the fast food industry ... indeed the entire restaurant industry ... will look like once the wookie gets done regulating what they can serve, and the unions force them to pay everyone $20 an hour plus health benefits?
Home cooking will be making a big revival in America!
Sam ain’t yo “uncle” anymo. He’s yo daddy now!
More evidence that Obamacare is not about health care but about controlling the masses.
Obama, you will have to pry my Little Debbies from my cold, dead hands!
FUBO
Yeah - taxes and regulations always result in stimulus....
If they want to save healthcare costs, shouldn’t they get people to be more unhealthy, so they die sooner? That’s what some of this is about.
“if you want to see riots on a nationwide scale this is THE way to do it.”
I doubt it. No one rioted when the government took control of all of our physical beings and no one rioted when our supremes confirmed it.
Instead, they call those of us pointing it out EXTREMISTS and the majority morons in this country confirm that they want more of their liberty confiscated from them.
No doubt such rules/taxes would include generous rebates/relief to unduly affected “classes”. For example, poor obese Amish females would likely be exempted.
Ultimately, we’ll find (surprise, surprise) that the burden of such rules/taxes will fall almost exclusively on aging, white males in Red states.
I’m not being factious either; this and much, much worse is coming. The only thing that will stop it is either the pending financial collapse and/or revolution. It may take 50 years before the revolution, and most of here won’t live to see it, but that’s what going to happen.
“Well, they’ll have to raise the amounts of food stamps.”
I think they might decide to forbid certain foods from being purchased with food stamps. I’ve already seen some talk about this. I don’t like it, because it picks the winners and losers in the marketplace. Some brands would take a serious, unfair hit.
The worst case I have seen of food Nazi-ism are certain Chicago public schools where students are no longer allowed to bring bag lunches, they must purchase a school lunch.
I doubt it too, nobody’s going to do anything. Nobody rioted or even took peaceful civil disobedience measures (e.g. hundreds all sitting down at once in line) when the perverts were unleashed by the thousands at the airports. No one blinked when the cancer machines were brought out either.
Eventually, since it’s all about STATIST control, when the gubmint figures out that they can save money by encouraging people to get fat and smoke 4 packs a day, they will reverse course and end encourage it since they think it will save money if the obese and smokers die sooner and save social security money.
Think I’m joking. See this in the latest CBO report.
http://tobaccoanalysis.blogspot.com/2012/11/new-england-journal-of-medicine.html?m=1
New England Journal of Medicine Commentary Argues Against Cigarette Tax Increase Because It Would Save So Many Lives that Payments for Social Security Would Increase
A commentary published yesterday in the New England Journal of Medicine argues against a federal cigarette tax increase because it would save so many lives that tens of thousands of people would live longer, resulting in increased Social Security and Medicare payments years later.
(See: Baumgardner JR, Bilheimer LT, Booth MB, Carrington WJ, Duchovny NJ, Werble EC. Cigarette taxes and the federal budget — report from the CBO. New England Journal of Medicine 2012; 367:2068-2070.)
The authors, from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), estimate the effects of a 50 cent per pack increase in the federal cigarette tax on the federal budget over a 70-year period. They find that while health care spending would substantially decrease, this effect would eventually be offset by increases in Social Security and Medicare spending because tens of thousands of people would live longer and thus be eligible for these programs.
The authors conclude that: “By 2035, some 63,000 additional adults would be alive because of the higher cigarette tax. And by 2085 (the final year of the analysis), more than 3 million adults would be nonsmokers because of the policy, including about 200,000 who would otherwise have died earlier.”
However, they also find that: “The reduction in federal outlays would total $730 million over the period between 2013 and 2021. During the second decade, however, the effects on longevity would begin to dominate and federal spending would be higher than it would have been otherwise — an effect that would continue through 2085. The two principal drivers of that increase in spending would be Social Security and Medicare. Improvements in longevity from a reduction in smoking tend to have their greatest effect on the size of the elderly population and thus tend to boost spending on programs aimed at that population.”
The Rest of the Story
This is one of the most perverse policy analyses that I have ever seen, and it is certainly the most perverse one that I have ever seen published in a medical journal. The authors are actually putting forward the argument that a major consideration in public health policy should be the fact that by saving tens of thousands of lives, a policy may result in increased spending for Social Security and Medicare because people will live longer.
Can you imagine the same argument being put forward regarding an analysis of whether the federal government should require health insurance companies to cover mammography? Would anyone in their right mind advance the argument that we should not require coverage for mammography screening because it would save the lives of thousands of younger women, therefore increasing Social Security spending because they will now live to be 65, rather than dying in their 40s or 50s and thus not becoming a drain on the system?
Thanks for the ping!
Great. Here comes the food pyramid and metabolic syndrome on steroids. Stalin’s second coming.
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