Posted on 12/17/2007 7:43:00 AM PST by SmithL
After banning plastic bags from chain grocery stores and bottled water from City Hall, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom has set his sights on soda - working up a plan to charge a new city fee to big retailers of sugar drinks.
"The bottom line is that there is a direct nexus between high-fructose corn syrup drinks like colas and Big Gulps and obesity among schoolkids," Newsom said Friday.
The idea of taxing soda to combat obesity - which is being touted as the first in the nation - has been roiling around in health circles for some time, including backing from the American Medical Association.
In San Francisco, Newsom said a recent Health Department survey found that 24 percent of fifth-, seventh- and ninth-graders were overweight and that high-sugar drinks accounted for 10 percent of the kids' caloric intake.
All in all, he said obesity accounts for tens of millions of dollars of the city's health costs.
Now Newsom wants the soda sellers - primarily big-box retailers and chain drugstores - to chip in for his "Shape Up San Francisco" program and for media campaigns to discourage the soda habit.
The size of the fee (it won't be billed as a tax) is being worked out, but it may include a sweetener - namely giving the stores some other kind of fee break.
But one way or the other, Newsom wants the merchants of sweet to sweat a bit.
By the way, Newsom said he has no plans for a Twinkies or Ho Hos tax.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
NAZI!!!!!!!
What a blithering moron this “Any Twosome” Newsom is...
San Fransicko, ever on the march to socialist utopia.
You like Newsom? You’ll LOVE Huckabee!
He’ll tax the sh*t out of all of us, and all for our own good.
Whoo hoo!
Just follow the Magic Christian Brick Road to socialist never-never land!
Whee!
Looks like Newsome also failed his high school level courses in chemistry and nutrition. Does Newsome think that this problem would be any different if the soft drink makers used sugar instead? No doubt he'd scream even louder if they ever tried to use calorie-free "artificial" sweeteners instead. You know, being made of dangerous chemicals and all. Uneducated people tend to say stupid things.
Typical government interference never ends.
Government subsidies corn. Corn syrup is therefore artificially “cheaper” than sugar.
Sodas (and virtually every other item that is sweet) now uses corn syrup instead.
Government becomes appalled by the spread of cheap sugary goodness. They propose a fee (fee is to tax what progressive is to liberal) on it.
Then, companies heavily begin to promote “zero calorie” drinks that use artificial sweeteners. Ten years from now, governments cite links to “pet-disease of the year or global warming” to the manufacture and/or consumption of artificial sweeteners. Putting another “fee” on it.
The cycle never ends.
How about a tax on “personal lubricants”?
Sugar is more expensive because the government restricts imports from countries where it is more efficiently grown.
Combined with fatty school lunches and kids watching 8 hours of TV a day, it's no wonder kids are getting fat.
How about an “idiot tax” imposed on people like Newsome...this is the same guy that had the city pay for his mistress...what a putz!!
That would be grossly unfair given that the tax-raisers are the ones screwing us, but hardly inconsistent with their history.
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