Soda/Obesity Tax?

[Elite Silkies]

I honestly do not think that increasing the tax on soda will help the weight problem.

My DD is very large at 275 lbs, and she drinks water most of the time. It's not the soda, it's all the food she eats.

We decide wether we want to be at the right weight or if we want to be overweight. It's a choice of wether we want to do something about it or not.

My weight flucuates all the time. I drink maybe one soda every couple of days. It's all the Sweet Tea I drink. I am currently about 24 lbs over weight right now. I could lose it if I tried.

 

[pbjmaker]

Mojo Chick'n :

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Party Planner!

PC can be the Mayo Police - he can make sure no Mayo ever comes across the border.​

That was my first thought too. That and how he would hate if they raised fast food taxes on his two whoppers or whatever it was.

 

[Wildsky]

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Well its the same with upping the tax on ciggies, not many people quit because of the tax. The idea is not to get people to quit but to get people to continue so they can keep getting more tax.

 

[Wildsky]

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Thats my story and I'm sticking to it!

 

[PurpleChicken]

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Well its the same with upping the tax on ciggies, not many people quit because of the tax. The idea is not to get people to quit but to get people to continue so they can keep getting more tax.

Exactly. The roll it yourself crowd is buying the supplies to roll a carton's worth of smokes for $15. Wonder how long it's gonna take to find another way to tax them...

 

[Wildsky]

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Well its the same with upping the tax on ciggies, not many people quit because of the tax. The idea is not to get people to quit but to get people to continue so they can keep getting more tax.

Exactly. The roll it yourself crowd is buying the supplies to roll a carton's worth of smokes for $15. Wonder how long it's gonna take to find another way to tax them...

They already upped the taxes on the tobacco - right as I was starting to quit. A can of tobacco doubled in price because of the taxes.
I first started to roll my own at the end of last year, it was SO much cheaper, then around April the taxes went up on ciggies and right after that the tobacco got hit.

I actually have a can and a half still in my kitchen cupboard. What a waste

 

[WalkingWolf]

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Exactly. The roll it yourself crowd is buying the supplies to roll a carton's worth of smokes for $15. Wonder how long it's gonna take to find another way to tax them...

They already upped the taxes on the tobacco - right as I was starting to quit. A can of tobacco doubled in price because of the taxes.
I first started to roll my own at the end of last year, it was SO much cheaper, then around April the taxes went up on ciggies and right after that the tobacco got hit.

I actually have a can and a half still in my kitchen cupboard. What a waste

There is still the option of growing your own tobacco, but somewhere I picture raids by swat teams when they are not busy raiding chickens.

 

[WalkingWolf]

BTW what is Uncle Sam going to do about the folks that drink sweet tea? Maybe put a G-man in every house to watch us.

 

[onthespot]

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But then you run into the problem of genetics. Can you tax people because they have a genetic predisposition for obesity? I try to eat healthy and exercise. I'm still very overweight. My cousin is a size two. She eats horribly and doesn't exercise. My parents and family from waaaayyyyy back are large people. Her extended family is all tiny. Clearly she won the genetics lottery. Why should I get penalized for something I cannot control?
If the gov't truly was concerned about our health, they would be offering help for unhealthy addictions. Smoking, drinking, overeating, lack of exercise, etc. would be treated instead of taxed.

A hundred years ago, there were almost no obese people in this country. i do not think that suddenly the obese men and women started getting really lucky and having huge families to a point where they overran the gene pool to a degree of sixty percent or whatever it is today. Face it. Most of us are not genetically fat. Most of us eat more calories than we burn and make bad food choices. I was not fat as a kid, I was grossly skinny, athletic, wirey. As an early adult I was muscular, fit, lean and active. As I am approaching middle age, I am overweight, out of shape, and it is pirmarily due to bad eating habits as the pressures of hanging on to what I got makes me work more hours and eat more fast food, processed food, less fresh fruit and veggies. I bet if we locked you and your family up and fed you a strictly regimented diet for a year and put you on a treadmill for x amt of hours a day, you would walk out of the program a skinny, fit person. I also bet you would go back to what you know and love and tank back up in less than six months. People will do what they will do. Taxing them will not change it. It is all about motivation. If you got sentenced to solitary confinement for life, with a get out of jail card if you kept your weight down for a year, you could and probably would do it.

 

[wombat]

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The really sad thing is that people are having a hard time paying their mortgage or rent, or feeding their families, but they've got two pack-a-day adults in the household shelling out about $56 a week each, or $448 a month to smoke.

That is sad but what is the solution? What if one of the people in the house is 300+ pounds? I may not like it nor do I like paying higher taxes or insurance premiums but I still do not believe I or the government has a right to intervene in these people's lives. This is all just part of the human condition. It has always been this way and always will.

Either stop all consumtion/use taxes, or uniformly tax all consumption and quit taxing income.

Return to the sole function of taxation being to support the government's budget, and stop using it as a tool for social engineering.