First Tobacco ... Now Soft Drinks ...

Originally posted by bigfatfurrytexan
Here is the issue for me:

People want to see taxes such as this because, as they say, "Your poor health costs tax dollars." It is a logical arguement on the surface, however if you think slighly deeper the logic does not follow.

Not at all...

I want the tax because the food supply is saturated with mostly cheap poison, while the healthy foods are rather expensive. The entire system is an economic incentive to eat poison.

I want that incentive removed.

reply to post by HunkaHunka

maybe a better way to do that would be to somehow make the good foods less expensive? I mean, if the healthy foods cost too much that people are willing to poison themselves with crap, maybe that healthy food is just too expensive.. tax the crap out of the crap, and well, you will end up with a bunch of more unhealthy starving people??

and I don't buy the idea that diet sodas are healthier for ya than the non-diet. not when my kid's pediatrician warned me back in the early 80's not to use the aspertame! if the tax the non-diet sodas they will be driving the poor to that poison!

na, there are better ways to get people eating healthy foods....the first step they should take is to look at where all their farm subsidies are going. beef, corn (for the corn syrup that is thrown into everything now days...which really too much of that isn't too good for ya either), ect..... they don't subsidize the farmers for growing the good healthy vegatables.... try starting there if you want healthier americans, not taxing the foods they are finding affordable to the point where they aren't affordable also and the people are finding themselves eating only every other day!

and.....
I will state again. the most obese people I have ever seen seem to congregate at the local steak resturant to enjoy their all you can eat buffet!! I don't see people that fat walking out the mc donalds too often, I don't see them exchanging their food stamps for sodas in the stores...but that one steak house in the city has me picking through my food wondering what is in it every time!!!

besides, it was the health professionals that conned us into giving up our "healthy food" decades ago!!! that good ole fashioned bacon, eggs, and toast breakfast has too much chlorestoral in it, better to trade it for this highly enriched with corn syrup breakfast cereal instead!!!

the lard we used wasn't good, better to replace it with this nice corn oil!!!

ect...ect....ect....
add to that the fact that we are all working our butts off to pay our nice government their taxes, we don't have time anymore to cook the really healthy foods.....so, well, here, enjoy this nice premade frozen dinner, again, god only knows what's been added....for you enjoyment!


na, leave my eating habits alone please. if left to decide for myself, I can keep my weight ateady, around 120 - 130.....if I try to follow the "professionals" advice (which I did when I was preganant.....) I will end up somewhere around 200 lbs.... which I did when I was following their advice!

Originally posted by HunkaHunka

Originally posted by bigfatfurrytexan
Here is the issue for me:

People want to see taxes such as this because, as they say, "Your poor health costs tax dollars." It is a logical arguement on the surface, however if you think slighly deeper the logic does not follow.

Not at all...

I want the tax because the food supply is saturated with mostly cheap poison, while the healthy foods are rather expensive. The entire system is an economic incentive to eat poison.

I want that incentive removed.

That is nice, however making cheap foods more expensive is not a solution.

When i was in college (way back in 1992), most of the students donated plasma for a little extra cash. Making 32 extra bucks a week was nice, and just about every student on all three college campuses in Abilene, TX donated plasma.

While i was down there one day i overheard one of the nurses talking to a guy who was obviously somewhat "simple". His BP was high that day, and she was explaining to him that he would have to wait to be able to donate because of it. He was begging, telling her how broke he was.

She provided some counseling to him regarding his diet, and asked him what he had eaten the night before so she could have a real life example to work with. His meal the night before? A package of hot dogs. She explained to him that the sodium in hot dogs would drive his BP up higher, and that it was a fairly fattening food.

He explained that he didn't have a choice. He said something like "When you are hungry and all you have is a dollar, you buy the most food you can with that dollar".

That day i donated half of my "earnings" to him and told him to come back the next day to see if his BP was better. Had i not, he was getting more and more angry and likely would have been ejected and banned from the plasma center.

Increasing taxes on cheap food will only drive hunger and malnutrition in the US. Having visited some very poor areas in my life, i can tell you that there are children who can ill afford to get LESS food because of taxes.

Well, once they start doing this, it will not end until we the people make it end once and for all.
I think I know exactly what I'm going to do.I'm going to build a chicken pen in my backyard. Get some laying hens, and have my own eggs. Raise a garden and maybe, just maybe get a few feeder calves and start raising my own meat.
Later on, if I have to get desperate I can kill the horse and eat him by the way of things.If it gets that bad,well the horse will just have to wind up being bbq'd. lol.
They know exactly what they are doing.
What I want is a detailed list of all the so-called people behind all of this so we can find a real solution to stopping them once and for all.But hey,if you like the thought of being a mindless slave with no will of your won.Go right ahead and knock yourself out. As for me and mine,I can always drink water.

So, the tax money goes to what?
Increased awareness of obesity and health problems?
Health care?
How about to the farmers who grow food that is actually good for us?

Exactly.

Nope, because everybody (ahem) wants to pay the huge health insurance premiums too.

I think people failed to realize that no matter what administration that was voted in our freedoms, paying for mistakes, taxing(but moreso with Dems),etc., is all the same in the end.

I doubt the tax is to force upon us what is said to be healthy and what is not.
Soft drinks are not the cause for obesity, but the cause being changes in our culture, such as being
in the digital/computer age-as opposed to taking nature walks and exercising outdoors,
not being able to have time to exercise because we're soo busy working, portion sizes being larger,dead end dieting,
fast foods and processed foods,and not knowing what is healthy for us to eat.

A lot of people buy soda over juice because of juices being so expensive. City was has too much chlorine to enjoy and people are bored by just bland water anyway.

I'm kinda shocked to see more participation on the rising of tobacco/soda prices as no one seemed to rise up against the high gas price/taxes as they are doing now, they just accepted it.
They drove less and dealt with it but they won't give up their habits! If they aren't taxing tobacco and soda they'll tax something else-probably more tax on rising electric bills, phone services/net services fees and the digital take over of television.

Originally posted by spinkyboo
They produce products that make us sick and are addictive.
Then they add a tax on to the most addictive products that make us sick.
Then they make money pretending to fix us with doctors and Big Pharma...
It's a perfect plan. Sick addicted poor people. Not hard to control.

That's exactly what they're doing: taxing addictive things. Why? Because addictive things are tax inelastic, and people will literally buy them instead of food.

If it weren't for the fact that the religious-right would blow a gasket, they'd legalize drugs and tax them.

Another problem with this (and I'm about to commit the slippery-slope fallacy here!) is that by using the "oh, well it's bad for you so we'll apply a sin tax" justification, they could follow that out to it's logical conclusion and apply a calorie tax (see: Calorie Poisoning ).

And in answer to "where is this money going?" It's going towards our debt. (see: Grace Commission Report ).

[edit on 15-4-2009 by theWCH]

Ladies and gentlemen. We all knew this was coming. Everybody that voted for Obama knew that he was the answer to every demosocialiberalists prayers. The left has a clear mandate and will fulfill every single whim and wish list that they have had since Carter told the USA to tighten our belts and learn to put up with a lower standard of living.
This is no news at all. You wanted it. You voted for it. You got it.
For those of you who like to say " I don't smoke, drink, shoot guns, use petroleum products or even drink sugary sodas." I say, "Wait till they tax toilet paper."
The good news is that after he gets through printing a few trillion more dollars for us to pay for in new taxes, you will be able to use dollars in a much more economical fashion than to pay the luxury taxes on Charmin.

I went grocery shopping yesterday and saw a note up at our local store. The new NC law states that folks with food stamps now have to pay a 2.5% food tax just like everyone else. Where before they didnt have to. I guess that is the Governments way of screwing them out of the extra food stamps they gave them.

But yeah, I figured that tobacco wouldnt be the end of it. I said it in the tobacco thread that sooner or later that everyone would feel it. Next it will be Diapers? T. paper since everyone uses that. Dog food and cat food, that way only the very rich can afford pets.

Lets hope they dont put a $5 tax on condoms or folks will see more babies on welfare. Which truthfully wouldnt surprise me at all.

If we are lucky at all they will start putting a huge tax on McDonalds burgers. That will help some kids to start eating more healthy.

For those of you that laughed at us smokers, What goes around comes around. So pay the taxes, and when it goes up to $3 a bottle dont cry.

Things of this nature are how it begins. One small thing here, another there. Big Brother is coming, people. Wake up and smell the way the wind is changing.