Libs think that wasted money could be better spent on handouts to those at home whether they work or not. If we are invaded and killed by a foreign enemy, screw it. We deserve it.
Posted on 12/17/2008 5:40:01 PM PST by Eric Blair 2084
Governor Paterson says he can raise $404 million in state revenues with a 15% tax on soft drinks (but not diet sodas, juices, milk, or water).
The relevant section of the statute reads:
"Create Sales Tax on Soft Drinks. Imposes an additional 18 percent rate of sales and compensating use taxes on fruit drinks that contain less than seventy percent of natural fruit juice and non-dietetic soft drinks, sodas and beverages. By increasing the price, it will discourage individuals, especially children and teenagers, from excessive consumption of these beverages. Revenues will be directed for health care initiatives."
And here’s the American Beverage Association’s predictable response: hurts the middle class, nobody wants it, no science or logic behind it.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out. For example, the maker of a carbonated juice drink wrote me to complain that her product, which is 50% juice and taxable, contains under 70 calories per 8-ounces in comparison to non-taxed 100% fruit juice at 110 calories/8 ounces. Obesity is about calories, no? Or is it really about the kinds of products people habitually drink?
I’m curious to know what you think of this idea. Please weigh in.
Taxation doesn't force, it merely encourages.
As long as people can become wards of the state by becoming indigent, disabled, ophaned, etc., as long as disease can be spread to innocents or epidemics started by unhealthy people, then Government has a significant legitimate interest in promoting good health practices.
You might as well ask how is it consistent with a free state for the government to insist your chinese food preparers wash their hands and don't add melamine to your food. Or for government to deny pushers access to highly addictive drugs. Or to limit the speed you can travel down public roads.
It's the same thing, it is just where you choose to draw the line. It's always going to be a balancing act.
Valid, but artificial sugars have been proven to cause greater weight gain than sugar. High fructose corn syrup is not handled by the body as well as sugar.
There is a real danger that government actually incents unhealthy behavior because there is so much misconceptions about what is healthy, so much junk science promoting misinformation, and so much that science just doesn't understand yet.
“Valid, but artificial sugars have been proven to cause greater weight gain than sugar. High fructose corn syrup is not handled by the body as well as sugar.”
Yes, everything isn’t known in this area, but a good bit is known. And it’s corn syrup giving people the equivalent of 10 - 40 or more teaspoons of sugar (depending on size) in their soft drinks.
I use stevia as sugar substitute, the natural sweetener from South America. Hopefully they won’t learn that it also has harmful effects.
LOL! Let's see, something offering no carbs, or no calories, will cause greater weight gain than something loaded with carbs and calories. Is that what you believe? Do you also deny the first law of thermodynamics?
High fructose corn syrup is not handled by the body as well as sugar.
High fructose corn syrup and sucrose (sugar) are both made up of glucose and fructose. That's it. Fructose is fructose and glucose is glucose, no matter what the source. Please explain to us how the body can manage glucose and fructose from sucrose but not from HFCS?
How does that work exactly? 10-40 more teaspoons of sugar are consumed when you use corn syrup to sweeten a drink instead of sugar? Do you even know the difference between corn syrup and HFCS? Do different sources of carbs offer differing amounts of calories per gram?
Where do you guys come up with this nonsense? Do you believe everything you read on the internet? Math and science must be harder than I thought.
I've been saying that for years.
And we wonder why the food Nazis are feeling emboldened. Sheesh.
Funny when otherwise smart people swallow MSM BS.
And it seems there’s a never ending supply of BS to be swallowed hook, line and sinker.
No it is not. It's a left wing liberal progressive act. (<----- Period. Notice the period.)
If you believe the threat of TAXES, JAIL and ARMED AGENTS to enforce and dictate and coerce citizens to do what the STATE wants them to do, you are a liberal.
It doesn't make you an asshole. You're entitled to your own opinion. But it DOES make you a progressive lib.
I really like that aspect of consumption taxes. However, isn't it unjust one group of people to pay for the government services that everyone uses?
If we all benefit from having an army and navy to protect our country, shouldn't everyone have to pitch in?
These were were large studies. I think some of them were done by University of Texas and the study authors believe that people that the weight gain is through indirect means. Either the artificial sugars slowed the metabolism and/or people compensated and ate more. But there was significant weight gain among the people consuming the artificial sugars.
"High fructose corn syrup and sucrose (sugar) are both made up of glucose and fructose. That's it. Fructose is fructose and glucose is glucose, no matter what the source. Please explain to us how the body can manage glucose and fructose from sucrose but not from HFCS?"
It's my understanding that high fructose corn syrup is primarily Fructose not Sucrose. And that Sugar is primarily Sucrose not Fructose. The body responds well to Sucrose, but has difficulty managing Fructose.
There are quite a few links in the chain connecting sugar to its "social costs".
If we're going to take such an expansive view on these matters, is there any product or behavior that wouldn't deserve to be taxed...other than eating fresh vegetables and working out every day?
“It doesn’t make you an asshole. You’re entitled to your own opinion. But it DOES make you a progressive lib.”
All your blabbering doesn’t make you an authority on anything. You’re just one more narrow ideologue who sees everything through a very narrow field of vision. Shifting part of costs to cost causers is a conservative approach, whether you understand it or not. But you, along with most liberal and socialists, would oppose any tax based upon the actual usage of a product, or a national sales tax, or the fair tax, etc.
Moving costs to the cost causers was part of the justification for the deregulation of part of telephone industry. Maybe you opposed that, also.
Or choose a competing insurance agency that spreads costs in a more favorable way. Or save up the money and start your own insurance company that will beat the competition.
It's sad that a lot of people seem to think they have a "right" to low cost private insurance, a right which they think justifies all manner of onerous government intrusion.
Gubmint is a necessary evil to provide us, the citizens, with stuff that we couldn't fund on our own. For example, we can't all individually protect ourselves from a large foreign army who wants to bomb or invade us and take OUR STUFF. Therefore, we have a national military to PROTECT OUR STUFF.
We all pitch in to pay for it. Once you start to introduce crap that Gubmint has no business being in like private health and making it a legitimate state function, than this is the result you get.
Perhaps, but it might be a Pyrrhic victory. The "reasonable" taxes used to simply recover costs are the first steps toward later imposing prohibitive taxes, and generally trying to mold people's behavior through government force. It's just like with gun control. The gun grabbers aren't going to come out and call for a total ban on all weapons...they'll start with seemingly "reasonable" regulations like minimal waiting periods and ammo taxes.
The money we "save" in the short term with these taxes could come at the expense of our liberty in the long term.
Yep. Government intrusion always begets more government intrusion.
Libs think that wasted money could be better spent on handouts to those at home whether they work or not. If we are invaded and killed by a foreign enemy, screw it. We deserve it.
Our legislators in Washington state tried twice without success (yet) to implement a tax for collecting rain water in a barrel. They said the rain that falls from the sky belongs to them. I am not kidding.
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