Soda Tax Could Shake Up Industry : NPR — When are they going to try and tax air? They’ve already got a fake recycling tax on the cans, why not the soda?
Amid the health care overhaul debate, one big question has been where to come up with about $1 trillion in funding to change the system. One idea that has been suggested is a junk food tax — and, in particular, a tax on soda.Public health advocates say drinking soda is directly linked to obesity, which is partly responsible for skyrocketing health care costs.At the Mace Market in a suburb of Davis, Calif., west of Sacramento, shiny bags of potato chips and candy bars line the shelves. Brightly lit, humming refrigerators are packed with bottles of soda.
Found by John Stec.
Cute… just like Cigarette taxes.
why can’t they just come out and be honest. The group of constituents who support this is small enough for us to beat the crap out of so we can do something increases taxes. Lying Government worshiping scumbags.
Can we also have a soy tax to fund male boobie-removal surgeries?
Fat people are lazy and sickening!!
Didn’t Obama PROMISE he wasn’t going to raise taxes on the poor and middle class? A tax like this would hit the poor and middle class the most.
Or were excise taxes not part of his promise?
People already know drinking soda is bad for you. People already know that eating junk food is not going to make you look like a runway model. Do we really need government to financially penalize people who make well-informed but unhealthy decisions?
I can see it now. The government will take Coca-Cola to court sometime in the future much like they did with the tobacco industry in order to recoup on higher health care costs.
The “victims” in all of this had no idea that drinking soda all day, every day would make you fat or that eating McDonald’s practically everyday will turn you into a disgusting fatbody.
Way to go Government! I hope Coca-Cola and other food products put warning labels on their products stating that sugar consumption may cause obesity in order to cover their own rears.
But that tattoo makes her look soooo cute! Like a little delicate flower with attitude.
This is ridiculous. What is next? Forcing us through taxes to live on tofu? I am going to be pouring my pop in the harbor to protest this tax.
I always thought that the rising prices on soda was a tax in itself. I remember when a can of soda was $0.25. The lounge in my office has them for $1.25.
You’d figure people would learn that sodas are bad for you when the main sweetener in the diet sodas causes cancer in mice… granted it’s gallons of soda a day every day of your life… but it still causes cancer.
Okay – let’s pretend we are going to try and make things better. And our way of doing this is by doing something. Not nothing. Doing nothing or ‘cutting taxes’ aren’t the only two solutions.
If you can accept easily demonstrable points…
1) So as a country we have problems with health. If lots of people are unhealthy (>30% americans are clinically obese) they will make health insurance expensive.
2) To have a good and effective work force you need a healthy workforce.
3) The drinking soda on a regular basis (ie more than once a day) is not good for your health.
Conclusion: It benefits _all of us_ for people who drink soda excessively to drink less. Much like cigarettes or alcohol or drugs or whatever.
So how are we going to sort this? What you got? Nothing?
Taxes are one way (often the easiest way) of making a free market system, automatically change a behavior in a desirable direction, without removing freedom of choice.
So unless you’ve got some better idea, this seems like a good idea – to benefit both the people who are drinking too much soda, and all the rest of us.
You’d think the only people bitching would be soda companies. As I’ve said before companies are there for the service of people, not vice versa.
“I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents…”
James Madison
Time to get back to the basics.
of course, they’ll never admit that it’s the artificial sweeteners and HFCS’s that have cause the bulk all
“health” issues.
-s
That which is not forbidden will be mandatory.
The nanny state utopia.
I wonder if someone said that homosexual promiscuity should be outlawed or taxed since it leads to the transmission of expensive diseases such as AIDS would NPR be so supportive.
#11 – Is NPR supporting this? I didn’t see that.
Oh, by reporting you mean supporting. You must be a Faux News gumby.
#8, That has got to be one of the worst logical justifications for the problem I’ve ever read.
The only reason they are looking to raise taxes is because they don’t have the money to fund their pet projects. Welfare programs already account for over half the US budget (of which how much is deficit spending?).
How does it feel to be a tool? Don’t bother answering that. Anybody who would lie about their wife will lie about anything.
#13 LibertyLover
Ah LibertyLover, you’re nothing if not consistent.
It would only take the merest hint of maturity to move on. You know we can agree to disagree, that’s fine.
Instead you insist on being a child.
Shame.
I stopped drinking soda and lost 30 pounds. All of that sugar and carbs do add up to something, and the human body is not supposed to take on that much sugar at any one time.
So, I don’t have a problem with this tax. I don’t drink soda, much like how I don’t drink alcohol or smoke.
My favorite tax idea is the “Asshole Tax.” Any cashier would be able to include a 10% surcharge on offending parties.
Instead of a soda tax how about a “Fatso Tax?”
Sorry sir, those double burgers are going to cost you a bit more today.
FTA
“In a New England Journal of Medicine article out this month, Brownell and several other public health experts argue that a soda tax could generate a lot of money. Brownell says a penny-an-ounce federal soda tax could generate $150 billion in the next 10 years.”
So at Sam’s Club I can buy 36 12oz cans for $8.88. That comes out to a little over $0.02 an ounce. So they want a 50% tax on Soda.
Why not just have a National sales tax on everything. Since everything is bad for you one way or another.
“Fat people are lazy and sickening!!” said the man with the username Buffet.=P
As for freddybobs68k, what about nonobese people who want soda. We have to get taxed too. Excessive joggers do damage to their joints. There’s a rising trend in sports injuries in youth and baby boomers that have been adding costs to health care too. Should we tax sneakers as well?
8, 15 the problem with people who prefer government intervention is that this mentality nurtures people not taking personal responsibility for themselves without it.
People know what they should and should not eat. There’s no need to drag everyone else through the mud in order to use government as an instrument of force because some people are not bothered by their overall health or physique.
Thanks but no thanks.
As long as they reduce tax on food and drink that is considered healthy then all is good. Then again how many obese Americans know how to eat an apple when it is not covered in toffee?
So some of my tax dollars go to supporting the corn subsidy, which leads to incredibly cheap high fructose corn syrup, which leads to cheap soda, which leads to people drink too much of that crap, which leads to obesity, which leads to the government adding more taxes.
So why not just STOP the corn subsidy, which would lead to higher priced soda and less obesity and SAVE me money on my taxes?
#21 Mojo Yugen
Well that works too 🙂
#21, If you remove the subsidy, the price of sugar will drop.
It’s the only thing keeping American sugar farmers in business and foreign competition out.
Sugar in the US is already higher than anywhere else in the world.
#18 stopher2475
I didn’t suggest it was perfect. Just one way of dealing with it.
If you don’t drink it much it will presumably effect you minimally. If you drink loads it will effect you.
Not perfect – but simple, and simple is good.
#19 Guyver
‘People know what they should and should not eat’
So the problem is education? People just don’t know? Really? Is that like with cigarettes – people just don’t know.
Generally people know. They like smoking continue to do it.
>30% Americans are clinically obese. Perhaps you are clinically obese – I’ve got a 1/3 chance of being right.
So I like Mojo Yugen idea.
Can you do better? Other than do nothing…
#23 Liberty Lover
Okay – so what should we do?
I hate they want to tax soda. Granted I don’t drink it and haven’t for 3 years. However, the whole taxing something because it’s not healthy is a load of crap. Here is my issue, they are seriously getting closer to a scenario from the crappy movie Demolition Man. If it’s unhealthy they outlaw it.
So if they tax junk food and soda, what all will that encompass? What if there are products that in moderation aren’t considered unhealthy but the trend in the US is always take/consume too much therefore making it unhealthy. I just think this opens the flood gate for overtaxation. This is the reason people sought independence from England when this country was founded. Yet we are going down that same path with the Government taking more and more liberties with what can be taxed.
#25, Nothing.
There is nothing in the Constitution that gives the federal government the power to control people’s health, no matter how much that irks you.
LibertyLover,
Have you looked at the label on a can of soda? It doesn’t have sugar in it. It has HFCS. (yes, there are a few small exceptions, but they don’t make enough to count.)
If Coke switched to actually using real sugar I’d imagine that alone would raise the price enough to help anyone growing sugar.
Actually I’d be in favor of a ban of HFCS entirely. I think that would be an effective first step in solving a lot of health problems we have. While sugar isn’t exactly a health food that crap is just poison.
#28, You are correct. My mistake.
However, I agree all subsidies should be eliminated. But, it won’t cause the price to go up. It will go down for the same reasons as sugar.
There is a reason farmers are told to NOT grow something in exchange for money — it keeps the prices up.
They tax cigarettes, right? Same logic.