This repeats a point made earlier but going after beverage size is MUCH easier than trying to get the corn subsidy repealed. The latter, if it were to happen, would jack up the cost of corn syrup and that cascading effect would likely increase the cost of sodas as well. The difference is which approach is more politically feasible.
sure but the farm bill route has other, arguably greater fringe benefits.
economically, ecologically, etc. killing corn subsidies would be awesome, not just because it made the price of soda more accurately reflect its cost of production.
sure but the farm bill route has other, arguably greater fringe benefits.
economically, ecologically, etc. killing corn subsidies would be awesome, not just because it made the price of soda more accurately reflect its cost of production.
Can we get a tax on lazy assholes who try to solve complex problems through taxes?
(Black coffee is highly addictive. I was at the park with my nephew the other day and some Seattle looking college kid came over drinking a latte. I told that bitch to move the fuck on, he was totally ruining my veterans day).
sure but the farm bill route has other, arguably greater fringe benefits.
economically, ecologically, etc. killing corn subsidies would be awesome, not just because it made the price of soda more accurately reflect its cost of production.
Can we get a tax on lazy assholes who try to solve complex problems through taxes?
(Black coffee is highly addictive. I was at the park with my nephew the other day and some Seattle looking college kid came over drinking a latte. I told that bitch to move the fuck on, he was totally ruining my veterans day).
sure but the farm bill route has other, arguably greater fringe benefits.
economically, ecologically, etc. killing corn subsidies would be awesome, not just because it made the price of soda more accurately reflect its cost of production.
Can we get a tax on lazy assholes who try to solve complex problems through taxes?
you get a D on reading comprehension, social studies, humor or whatever it is you're attempting to do here
This repeats a point made earlier but going after beverage size is MUCH easier than trying to get the corn subsidy repealed. The latter, if it were to happen, would jack up the cost of corn syrup and that cascading effect would likely increase the cost of sodas as well. The difference is which approach is more politically feasible.
sure but the farm bill route has other, arguably greater fringe benefits.
economically, ecologically, etc. killing corn subsidies would be awesome, not just because it made the price of soda more accurately reflect its cost of production.
Oh, no doubt. But my point is that getting rid of the corn subsidy is a far more difficult policy to pass vs. a tax on sodas or banning beverage size.
Sadly a lot of bad legislation comes from doing what is politically possible (limiting beverage sizes sold in restaurants, carts, theater and ball parks in NYC - but not groceries and bodegas) instead of what is needed (ending corn, soy and cotton subsidies).
Thought I would do a little research on the topic and found something at one of my favorite childhood information sources:
How Much Soda Pop Do You Drink?
If you are like many children, you gulp gallons of soda pop. But do you know exactly how much soda pop you gulp in one year?
A new study shows that Americans drink more soda pop today than ever before. In fact, during the last 25 years, Americans have doubled the amount of soda pop they consume. That's one big gulp!
The study shows that Americans drink an average of 1.6 cans of soda pop every day. That might not sound like much, but it can really add up. In one year, on average, each American drinks 597 cans of soda pop.
Drinking Liquid Sugar
Americans' super-size appetite for soda pop worries many health experts. Soda pop is loaded with sugar and calories. One 12-ounce serving can contain 10 teaspoons of sugar. Combined, 597 cans of soda contain 32 pounds of sugar!
The sugar in soda pop can cause people who drink it to gain weight faster than people who do not drink pop. In an experiment, health experts at Purdue University in Indiana had one group of people drink 449 calories in soda pop each day. They had a second group of children gobble up 449 calories in jelly beans each day.
The people who drank soda pop gained weight. The people who ate jelly beans did not. A person who drinks 597 cans of pop may gain nearly 16 pounds in the course of a year, say the Purdue scientists. The scientists now want to find out why drinking liquid sugar causes people to gain weight faster than eating sugar.
Side note: TV news reports about obesity have been using the same B-roll footage of fat people since the mid 90's. In each segment I see the same headless people lumbering along the sidewalk in XXXL No Fear shirts in standard definition.
If someone would just spend an afternoon filming civilians at a midwestern pedestrian mall, we could finally waddle into 2012.
A handful of corporations supply a major portion of what Americans eat.
In my opinion, because these corporation supply such a great amount of our food and calories, they have a responsibility to our health.
Sadly, instead of taking that responsibility they encourage us to eat less healthy.
In my opinion, when the corporations fail to take responsibility it becomes the governments responsibility.
The corporations who come to mind first for most of us are McDonalds, Pepsi, Coke.
The study shows that Americans drink an average of 1.6 cans of soda pop every day.
I was waaaay above that average back in college (I almost exclusively drank soda at that point), but I guess college got that big soda binge out of my system because after that, my soda consumption dropped severely, and now, I don't really drink it at all, save for the occasional Mexi-Coke when I'm at the burrito joint for lunch. I know how easy it is to just straight guzzle soda, though, and in that sense, 1.6 cans per day seems low, but knowing that the soda-guzzlers have to balance out people like me who drink little to no soda, that number seems crazy high.
I love how folks are willing to pass laws and "sin taxes" on what THEY feel are "sinful acts" that have an adverse effect on society but when others want to pass laws on what THEY feel are "sinful acts" they are called Intolerant Morans by the very same people.
Of course none of these laws will effect you because you are too smart to feed your kids soda, or smoke, or eat trans fats but we need them to protect those folks who aren't quite as smart as you from harming themselves.
I don't want ANYONE deciding what laws need to be passed to protect me from myself....not the Religious Right or the Holier Than Thou Left....I don't want anydamnone in my bedroom or my kitchen..
Now if you want to make sure that the government doesn't subsidize and in effect promote these "sins".....or make sure that NO taxpayers money goes towards the purchase of these "heathen" items....no problem.
Note: I did not come up with the phrase "sin tax" but it is commonly used to describe cigarette, alcohol, etc. taxes.
However, I think the notion of "sin" here doesn't mean the same thing to all parties. After all, opponents of gay marriage who see being gay as sinful aren't asking for it to be taxed as a deterrent. They want to see if banned outright.
The equivalent - with sodas - would be a law that outright bans sugary drinks, like what Prohibition did for alcohol. But that's an entire magnitude of difference from a tax.
Apples/oranges.
Moreover, there's the kind of "sins" which double as forms of moral danger vs. sins that are seen as sinful because they're bad literal public health costs and concerns. No one's really making a persuasive argument that, say, premarital sex or easy divorce are public health issues. In contrast, I think those who want to levy taxes of sodas or alcohol or tobacco have been extremely successful in moving *away* from moral arguments and instead, have framed their rhetoric around "costs" and "health outcomes."
In essence, they wouldn't describe their actions as support "sin taxes" because they wouldn't frame their goals in that kind of particular, moral language. It's really OPPONENTS to these taxes who wheel out the "sin taxes" or "nanny state" arguments.
(all this said, I understand where Rich is coming from. And as noted earlier in the thread, I think the common ground here, ideologically, is that we can all agree that getting rid of subsidies that artificially lower the price of corn, and thus corn syrup, is a worthwhile goal).
!) I didn't limit my argument to taxes but purposefully included laws.
2) Moral language = Semantics, since the word sin is usually based in religion but is not when used by our society as "sin taxes".
3) While I am not inclined to do it, an argument can be made about promiscuous sex leading to STD's which infect nearly as many people in the U.S. as are obese. Yet I doubt anyone here would be in favor of an STD treatment tax. Apple/Oranges due only to orifices.
Your STD treatment analogy doesn't make sense...Mountain Dew isn't treatment for anything, nor is medicine a "sin" or vice (when used to treat disease of course)
What's wrong with taxing non-foods and using the revenue to educate against these non-foods and subsidize things like carrots and spinach? I think most people agree that the fact that a 2 liter soda and a box of twinkies cost a lot less than a bag of carrots is fucked up in a big way. Since when are cheaper vegetables (that are used for food, not non food like corn syrup) a threat to liberty?
Your STD treatment analogy doesn't make sense...Mountain Dew isn't treatment for anything, nor is medicine a "sin" or vice (when used to treat disease of course)
What's wrong with taxing non-foods and using the revenue to educate against these non-foods and subsidize things like carrots and spinach? I think most people agree that the fact that a 2 liter soda and a box of twinkies cost a lot less than a bag of carrots is fucked up in a big way. Since when are cheaper vegetables (that are used for food, not non food like corn syrup) a threat to liberty?
The analogy is taxing a behavior, promiscuous sex vs. drinking crap, that both have negative health impacts on our society. Of course you can't tax the sex itself so you would have to tax the cure in order to "punish" or help curtail that behavior. You could also use the STD tax money for sex education. The logic is similar.
Did you read the link that Odub posted? I think it will answer your above question.
I just read a very compelling article about how red meat is very bad for you and causes major health issues amongst those who consume it.
Your STD treatment analogy doesn't make sense...Mountain Dew isn't treatment for anything, nor is medicine a "sin" or vice (when used to treat disease of course)
What's wrong with taxing non-foods and using the revenue to educate against these non-foods and subsidize things like carrots and spinach? I think most people agree that the fact that a 2 liter soda and a box of twinkies cost a lot less than a bag of carrots is fucked up in a big way. Since when are cheaper vegetables (that are used for food, not non food like corn syrup) a threat to liberty?
The analogy is taxing a behavior, promiscuous sex vs. drinking crap, that both have negative health impacts on our society. Of course you can't tax the sex itself so you would have to tax the cure in order to "punish" or help curtail that behavior. You could also use the STD tax money for sex education. The logic is similar.
Did you read the link that Odub posted? I think it will answer your above question.
I just read a very compelling article about how red meat is very bad for you and causes major health issues amongst those who consume it.
Red meat however is still a food, it has protein, iron, vitamins...people have been eating it for hundreds, if not thousands of years. True they havent been eating factory farmed corn-fed red meat for that length of time...the "factory farmed" "subsidized corn"-fed are the terms that matter here, and we are back to corn subsidies. It is a question of food versus non-food. Red Meat, although thought to be bad for you is still a food, mountain dew is a non-food. The fact that non-food injestibles are cheaper to produce than real food is really fucked up. Also when you tax something, you use a word that most people respond to, they pay attention to it as "tax" has been a boogey man in our society for awhile now.."taxes" bring attention to a subject...the more educated among us pay attention and discuss it, like we are doing now...the dipshits of the nation wave a "don't tread on me" flag and act like it is a violation of "liberty" for it to occur. Lets tax certain ingedients...once corn is no longer yellow and isn't used for cooking, popping and doesnt show up in your poop...tax the shit outta it, make corn-fed beef prohibitably expensive, make corn-syrup more expensive than gasoline, make nitrates cause a hot dog to cost $5. Over time, people will stop buying those things if they are concerned with their wallets. Wallet size will always be more important to the majority than waist-size.
Your STD treatment analogy doesn't make sense...Mountain Dew isn't treatment for anything, nor is medicine a "sin" or vice (when used to treat disease of course)
What's wrong with taxing non-foods and using the revenue to educate against these non-foods and subsidize things like carrots and spinach? I think most people agree that the fact that a 2 liter soda and a box of twinkies cost a lot less than a bag of carrots is fucked up in a big way. Since when are cheaper vegetables (that are used for food, not non food like corn syrup) a threat to liberty?
The analogy is taxing a behavior, promiscuous sex vs. drinking crap, that both have negative health impacts on our society. Of course you can't tax the sex itself so you would have to tax the cure in order to "punish" or help curtail that behavior. You could also use the STD tax money for sex education. The logic is similar.
Did you read the link that Odub posted? I think it will answer your above question.
I just read a very compelling article about how red meat is very bad for you and causes major health issues amongst those who consume it.
Red meat however is still a food, it has protein, iron, vitamins...people have been eating it for hundreds, if not thousands of years. True they havent been eating factory farmed corn-fed red meat for that length of time...the "factory farmed" "subsidized corn"-fed are the terms that matter here, and we are back to corn subsidies. It is a question of food versus non-food. Red Meat, although thought to be bad for you is still a food, mountain dew is a non-food. The fact that non-food injestibles are cheaper to produce than real food is really fucked up. Also when you tax something, you use a word that most people respond to, they pay attention to it as "tax" has been a boogey man in our society for awhile now.."taxes" bring attention to a subject...the more educated among us pay attention and discuss it, like we are doing now...the dipshits of the nation wave a "don't tread on me" flag and act like it is a violation of "liberty" for it to occur. Lets tax certain ingedients...once corn is no longer yellow and isn't used for cooking, popping and doesnt show up in your poop...tax the shit outta it, make corn-fed beef prohibitably expensive, make corn-syrup more expensive than gasoline, make nitrates cause a hot dog to cost $5. Over time, people will stop buying those things if they are concerned with their wallets. Wallet size will always be more important to the majority than waist-size.
I hear what you're saying .....but you can go into a restaurant and order water, for free, which is certainly cheaper than any corn syrup drink. If wallet watching was the motivation people would be drinking what is free...but they are not. Taxing the end user rather than stopping subsidies(which I think everyone in this thread agrees should be done) is like arresting the street corner dealer while the government continues to run mass quantities of drugs and reaping the cash.
I'd personally like to see marijuana legalized so that as an adult I have the choice to smoke it or not. I am certain similar arguments have been and will be made as a way to either prevent this from happening or taxing the shit out of it if it does. I don't agree with that mindset and if that is some "don't tread on me" bullshit, so be it.
I really do think that the myths that we are operating under which are exposed and debunked in the article Odub posted should be recognized by us "more educated" folks.
Candy should be next......chocolate is a vice not a food......Meat is Murder and there are folks that would like to see it banned from being a "food" irregardless of it's long history....of course you and I would draw the line there but supporters would say that's because we're not as "educated" as they are.
And if the financial strain on society is the motivation we need to look at studies that compare the total life time financial burden of the obese smoker who dies prematurely as a result vs. the relatively healthy person who lives way past the average age.
If the motivation is to look out for your fellow adult and make sure they have a healthy life even if they personally aren't motivated to pursue one, that is a noble but impossible pursuit.
Like I said earlier...end subsidies, don't use taxpayer money to allow the purchase of these drinks and I'll even add needing to be an "adult" to buy them....but taxing/legislating morality is a fools errand imo.
Red meat however is still a food, it has protein, iron, vitamins...people have been eating it for hundreds, if not thousands of years. True they havent been eating factory farmed corn-fed red meat for that length of time...the "factory farmed" "subsidized corn"-fed are the terms that matter here, and we are back to corn subsidies. It is a question of food versus non-food. Red Meat, although thought to be bad for you is still a food, mountain dew is a non-food. The fact that non-food injestibles are cheaper to produce than real food is really fucked up. Also when you tax something, you use a word that most people respond to, they pay attention to it as "tax" has been a boogey man in our society for awhile now.."taxes" bring attention to a subject...the more educated among us pay attention and discuss it, like we are doing now...the dipshits of the nation wave a "don't tread on me" flag and act like it is a violation of "liberty" for it to occur. Lets tax certain ingedients...once corn is no longer yellow and isn't used for cooking, popping and doesnt show up in your poop...tax the shit outta it, make corn-fed beef prohibitably expensive, make corn-syrup more expensive than gasoline, make nitrates cause a hot dog to cost $5. Over time, people will stop buying those things if they are concerned with their wallets. Wallet size will always be more important to the majority than waist-size.
cosign that to the letter
its not really about the individual obesity case for me, its about the public costs related to their obesity. so why should we subsidize corn in order to create immense profits for GMA members who then pass the health related costs on to taxpayers? a soda tax might not reduce the amount consumed, but it will help defray public expenditures that could be going to roads and schools. the nanny state has her legs wide open for corporations who are simultaneously sucking at the boobs
Sin taxes in modern economic terms amount to excise, or per unit, taxes that are chiefly designed to reduce specific behaviors thought to be harmful to society. Sin taxes have played roles of varying importance throughout U.S. tax history. The ever-expanding list of taxable "sins" proposed by governments includes cigarettes, alcoholic beverages, gasoline, bullets, and, more recently, sugary soft drinks and fatty snacks.
In 1790, Alexander Hamilton proposed the first excise tax on whiskey to refund Revolutionary War debts, following Adam Smith's direction in the Wealth of Nations. Made immortal by the rebellion it spawned, Hamilton's whiskey tax was subsequently rescinded, but selective excise taxes have hardly disappeared. History reveals that federal excise taxes have been predominantly enacted as wartime emergency measures, and the majority of the taxes were customarily repealed when hostilities ended. Recently, however, the arguments for imposing new excise taxes and increasing existing ones have reemerged across party lines and have spawned several myths about the efficacy of sin taxation.
MYTH 1: SIN TAXES DISCOURAGE UNHEALTHY BEHAVIORS
State and local governments are increasingly imposing sin taxes as political activists try to force Americans to adopt their own version of "clean living." These taxes are designed to raise prices so that "sinful" goods become so expensive that consumers will give them up for something healthier. However, this rarely happens.
Research has shown that when the price of a "sinful" good increases, consumers often substitute an equally "bad" good in its place. For example, two studies found that teen marijuana consumption increased when states raised beer taxes or increased the minimum drinking age. Another study found that smokers in high-tax states are more likely to smoke cigarettes that are longer and higher in tar and nicotine than smokers in low-tax states. Specifically, they discovered that young adults aged 18???24 are much more responsive to tax changes than older smokers. For young smokers, the switch to cigarettes with higher tar and nicotine is so large that tax hikes actually increase average daily tar and nicotine consumption.
The federal government has also attempted to impose "hefty" taxes on sugared sodas and sports drinks to reduce obesity in the United States.6 The assumption is that this sin tax would reduce caloric intake because consumers would stop drinking high-calorie drinks and/or switch to lower-calorie drinks. However, as table 1 shows, if consumers respond to the proposed sin tax on sodas and sports drinks by switching to some of the potential substitute drinks, their caloric intake would either remain the same or actually increase.
MYTH 2: SIN TAXES ARE A GOOD WAY TO RAISE REVENUE
Although the underlying rationale for sin taxes is to discourage consumption of "sinful" products, it is often argued that the tax would also help raise revenue that would, in turn, be used to finance projects like federal health insurance. The problem with this argument is that these regulatory and revenue-raising justifications work at cross-purposes. If the tax is actually effective at discouraging consumption of a "sinful" good, after all, then there would be very little revenue raised because people would purchase much less of the more expensive good in question.
To help solve the obesity problem, some localities have already begun to impose "hefty" taxes on sugared sodas and sports drinks to reduce obesity in the United States. This appears to be most true for cigarette taxes as many continue to purchase cigarettes at the higher taxed prices. Recent anti-smoking initiatives at the federal, state, and local levels have gained unprecedented popular support, probably because of their ability to raise revenue. For instance, President Obama recently signed a law that increased federal tobacco excise taxes on a pack of cigarettes from $0.39 per pack to $1.01.9 However, as we shall see, the revenue raised is hardly ever used for its proposed purpose.
Furthermore, if the object is to raise the most revenue, economists generally prefer broad-based taxes to narrow-based "sin" taxes on efficiency grounds. In other words, economists have generally argued that the welfare loss resulting from excise taxation is significant enough to justify "spreading" taxes across many commodities.
MYTH 3: PRIMARY SUPPORT FOR SIN TAXATION COMES FROM CIVIC-MINDED CITIZENS
Generally speaking, people support taxes that benefit them directly; that is, they lobby for taxes to receive "rents." In many cases, two dissimilar groups may support taxes for completely different reasons and be wooed by revenue-hungry politicians. Bruce Yandle calls this phenomenon "Bootleggers and Baptists," an expression derived from an unlikely alliance that formed during Prohibition. Bootleggers, or those who smuggled alcohol illegally, gain business at the expense of their legal competitors, while Baptists, who sought to reduce alcohol consumption, see their moral goals legislated. For the result to be durable, both parts of the coalition must remain in place. For instance, the cooperation of "Baptist" government officials and ethanol producers have kept ethanol subsidies in place.
Another example of rent seeking is the 1987 lobbying effort by a coalition of nonprofit organizations to more than triple California's cigarette tax from 10 to 35 cents a pack. The tax was expected to raise over $500 million annually, much of which would ostensibly go to these very organizations for research, indigent medical care, and antismoking "education" campaigns. This obviously represents a huge conflict of interest for the nonprofit organizations: Are their lobbying efforts directed at the cause they fight or merely at raising funds for their organizations? When tax receipts first became available, the president of one of these nonprofits, the California Medical Association, actually admitted to legislators that his organization and the health charities were "fighting for this money like jackals over a carcass."
Nonprofits fighting for a particular cause also have to fear competition from the government. Often, they end up having to fight against politicians who are first and foremost interested in increasing government funding. For instance, a coalition of California nonprofit antismoking organizations, directed by the umbrella group Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights, brazenly sued Governor Pete Wilson for "illegally diverting" more than $165 million that supposedly should have been spent on "education" programs and instead was "improperly used for health screening and immunization of poor children. In fact, there is never any guarantee that tax funds will be used as advertised, and there is very little public control. These funds usually go into the general fund or toward other politically favored causes.
MYTH 4: SIN TAXES ARE FAIR
Sin taxes are regressive, falling disproportionately on consumers at the lower end of the income distribution. Not only do "lower income classes tend to lose slightly more of their total income than higher income classes..." on a wide range of excise-taxed products, but Daniel Suits actually found that excise taxes are the most regressive form of taxation.16
A significant number of studies, though somewhat controversial, argue that excise taxes have negative health consequences because they crowd out private expenditures, a portion of which would have been spent on private health and safety measures. This means that by instituting sin taxes, the government is effectively preventing people from spending their own money on things like safer cars, preventive medical check-ups, baby gates, and smoke detectors. Evidence shows that for every $15 million taken out of the hands of consumers, there is one statistical death. Another paper finds statistical evidence that the poor suffer more on the health front from dollars being crowded out by government policies.
MYTH 5: SIN TAXES ARE ThE BEST WAY TO CHANGE UNDESIRED BEHAVIOR
If the objective of sin taxation is to alter "objectionable" behavior, less-costly options exist in the private sector. For example, a coalition of scientists, academics, health organizations, food producers, and retailers developed the Smart Choices Program to better inform consumers about the nutritional characteristics of food.19 Through its front-of-pack labeling program, Smart Choices identifies healthier food and beverage choices within specified product categories. Unlike coercive government measures to tax unhealthy foods and beverages, this program provides the information people need to stay within their recommended caloric intake and make product-by-product nutritional comparisons at their discretion.
Another example is given by the Phoenix Companies Inc. insurance company, which has started offering discounts to customers who maintain a low Body Mass Index (BMI). Their program offers discounts up to 20 percent on life insurance policies to customers whose BMI is verified by a doctor to be between 19 to 25. In fact, most insurance companies already provide a discount for customers who do not smoke or drink. Private market programs and products like these that encourage and reward healthy lifestyles instead of punishing personal choices are more efficient solutions to curbing obesity than sin taxes on unhealthy products.
CONCLUSION
So-called sin taxes, even those passed with the best of intentions, have undesirable consequences because they contradict basic principles of economics, finance and, most importantly, free choice. In general, since proposals to tax lifestyle choices are concentrated on narrow consumer choices, they are rarely efficient. What's more, taxing sin usually does not end up significantly altering the "sinful" behavior but rather rewards the very private organizations or politicians who have lobbied for the tax. Also, sin tax revenue is collected primarily at the expense of the poor and crowds out private expenditures on health care.
Sin tax activists strongly believe that most citizens are inherently incapable of making consumption decisions for themselves. Carried to its logical extreme, "the notion that any product or lifestyle choice that even remotely contributes to health care costs should be taxed to help finance public spending would leave nothing untaxed."23 Once it becomes "legitimate for government to protect individuals from their own follies,"24 there is no way to establish limits to governmental powers. As Nobel Prize winner James Buchanan pointed out, any attempt of a government to restrict private consumption choices with sin taxes is nothing but a "meddlesome preference."25
I get where these things are coming from, but it doesn't address "sins" that have an alternative...what is the alternative to tobacco? Not using it. what is the alternative to alcohol? Not using it. The "debunked" myths this author is talking about are in regards to things that the only alternative to the product is not using the product. There is an alternative to soda...water, juice, sugar-free carbonated beverages, tea, etc....taxing them brings the price up to the level of the healthy alternatives. There is an alternative to corn-fed, factory made red meat...small farm, grass fed, non-hormone, red meat...taxing the cheap stuff brings the price up to the level of the healthier alternative.
all the points made in the above letter make sense, but only with "sins" with no alternative...drinking, smoking..the alternative is not doing it. We all need to eat, we don't need to use tobacco or alcohol, recreational drugs...again the only alternative to them is not using them. You cannot use the same argument for food.
I get where these things are coming from, but it doesn't address "sins" that have an alternative...what is the alternative to tobacco? Not using it. what is the alternative to alcohol? Not using it. The "debunked" myths this author is talking about are in regards to things that the only alternative to the product is not using the product. There is an alternative to soda...water, juice, sugar-free carbonated beverages, tea, etc....taxing them brings the price up to the level of the healthy alternatives. There is an alternative to corn-fed, factory made red meat...small farm, grass fed, non-hormone, red meat...taxing the cheap stuff brings the price up to the level of the healthier alternative. If they both cost the same at the store, then you have taken away a cheaper option (that also happens to be worse for you)
all the points made in the above letter make sense, but only with "sins" with no alternative...drinking, smoking..the alternative is not doing it. We all need to eat, we don't need to use tobacco or alcohol, recreational drugs...again the only alternative to them is not using them. You cannot use the same argument for food.
I get where these things are coming from, but it doesn't address "sins" that have an alternative...what is the alternative to tobacco? Not using it. what is the alternative to alcohol? Not using it. The "debunked" myths this author is talking about are in regards to things that the only alternative to the product is not using the product. There is an alternative to soda...water, juice, sugar-free carbonated beverages, tea, etc....taxing them brings the price up to the level of the healthy alternatives. There is an alternative to corn-fed, factory made red meat...small farm, grass fed, non-hormone, red meat...taxing the cheap stuff brings the price up to the level of the healthier alternative.
all the points made in the above letter make sense, but only with "sins" with no alternative...drinking, smoking..the alternative is not doing it. We all need to eat, we don't need to use tobacco or alcohol, recreational drugs...again the only alternative to them is not using them. You cannot use the same argument for food.
So call corn syrup/soda a vice and not a food....no one will argue that point.
Anti-meat folks will argue you can get protein and every other nutritional value in meat from other sources....they don't give a shit how it was raised.
I have no horse in this race because those that know me have seen me drink a Double Gulp while wielding a framing nailer.
There is a huge issue, maybe it's been brought it up, i haven't read through the thread intensely:
Fountain soda is the single most profitable thing in any restaurant. Actually profitable doesn't even describe the markup - It costs on average about 8 cents per cup to make (on site) and is sold at well over a dollar, each and every time. It's water, gas and syrup in a box. Without soda most restaurants would not be able to stay open. I know that sounds crazy but it is pretty much true.
More immediate than taxes and subsides would be the profit hit restaurants would take should soda be taxed or regulated. Not saying it's a bad or good thing, but it would create a nightmare in the streets.
I have no horse in this race because those that know me have seen me drink a Double Gulp while wielding a framing nailer.
There is a huge issue, maybe it's been brought it up, i haven't read through the thread intensely:
Fountain soda is the single most profitable thing in any restaurant. Actually profitable doesn't even describe the markup - It costs on average about 8 cents per cup to make (on site) and is sold at well over a dollar, each and every time. It's water, gas and syrup in a box. Without soda most restaurants would not be able to stay open. I know that sounds crazy but it is pretty much true.
More immediate than taxes and subsides would be the profit hit restaurants would take should soda be taxed or regulated. Not saying it's a bad or good thing, but it would create a nightmare in the streets.
I don't think the bill being considered in NYC would have that much of an impact on restaurants. It's basically a ban on bottles of soda over 16oz. I don't think most restaurants serve larger sizes anyway, unless you're counting fast food chains.
The thing with the size ban is idiotic...here you can eat a bucket of fried chicken, but you can only have a small soda to wash it down with...no, you can have all the soda you want, but it must be in multiple small containers. As I said before, all this law does is make more garbage.
Most mouthbreathing politicians are going to spin the ending of subsidies on corn as a "rise in taxes on the hard working American farmer"...you know this is what would happen. So adding a tax/ending subsidies are going to be called the same thing.
I would argue that the anti-corn syrup lobby is larger and more powerful than any "lets ban meat" lobby...now and in the near future.
Vegetarians/Vegans will not now nor in the near future get anything "banned" for any reason be it moral/health/etc.
A 51 year old vegetarian, professional TV cook that promotes the banning of meat and dairy, advocates colonic cleansing and living a "clean" lifestyle: Gillian McKeith (I had the name wrong-edit)
Another 51 year professional TV cook who advocates eating meat, dairy and drinking wine and cocktails: Nigella Lawson
not saying one is right and one is wrong, but who do you think most Americans would listen to in terms of health...who looks healthier?
Comments
sure but the farm bill route has other, arguably greater fringe benefits.
economically, ecologically, etc. killing corn subsidies would be awesome, not just because it made the price of soda more accurately reflect its cost of production.
shit is delicious.
and it contains good antioxidants.
Can we get a tax on lazy assholes who try to solve complex problems through taxes?
(Black coffee is highly addictive. I was at the park with my nephew the other day and some Seattle looking college kid came over drinking a latte. I told that bitch to move the fuck on, he was totally ruining my veterans day).
So this happened in November?
you get a D on reading comprehension, social studies, humor or whatever it is you're attempting to do here
Oh, no doubt. But my point is that getting rid of the corn subsidy is a far more difficult policy to pass vs. a tax on sodas or banning beverage size.
How Much Soda Pop Do You Drink?
If you are like many children, you gulp gallons of soda pop. But do you know exactly how much soda pop you gulp in one year?
A new study shows that Americans drink more soda pop today than ever before. In fact, during the last 25 years, Americans have doubled the amount of soda pop they consume. That's one big gulp!
The study shows that Americans drink an average of 1.6 cans of soda pop every day. That might not sound like much, but it can really add up. In one year, on average, each American drinks 597 cans of soda pop.
Drinking Liquid Sugar
Americans' super-size appetite for soda pop worries many health experts. Soda pop is loaded with sugar and calories. One 12-ounce serving can contain 10 teaspoons of sugar. Combined, 597 cans of soda contain 32 pounds of sugar!
The sugar in soda pop can cause people who drink it to gain weight faster than people who do not drink pop. In an experiment, health experts at Purdue University in Indiana had one group of people drink 449 calories in soda pop each day. They had a second group of children gobble up 449 calories in jelly beans each day.
The people who drank soda pop gained weight. The people who ate jelly beans did not. A person who drinks 597 cans of pop may gain nearly 16 pounds in the course of a year, say the Purdue scientists. The scientists now want to find out why drinking liquid sugar causes people to gain weight faster than eating sugar.
http://www.eduplace.com/kids/mw/wr/5/wr5_08_21_5.html
If someone would just spend an afternoon filming civilians at a midwestern pedestrian mall, we could finally waddle into 2012.
In my opinion, because these corporation supply such a great amount of our food and calories, they have a responsibility to our health.
Sadly, instead of taking that responsibility they encourage us to eat less healthy.
In my opinion, when the corporations fail to take responsibility it becomes the governments responsibility.
The corporations who come to mind first for most of us are McDonalds, Pepsi, Coke.
Most likely the worse offender is ADM.
I was waaaay above that average back in college (I almost exclusively drank soda at that point), but I guess college got that big soda binge out of my system because after that, my soda consumption dropped severely, and now, I don't really drink it at all, save for the occasional Mexi-Coke when I'm at the burrito joint for lunch. I know how easy it is to just straight guzzle soda, though, and in that sense, 1.6 cans per day seems low, but knowing that the soda-guzzlers have to balance out people like me who drink little to no soda, that number seems crazy high.
Of course none of these laws will effect you because you are too smart to feed your kids soda, or smoke, or eat trans fats but we need them to protect those folks who aren't quite as smart as you from harming themselves.
I don't want ANYONE deciding what laws need to be passed to protect me from myself....not the Religious Right or the Holier Than Thou Left....I don't want anydamnone in my bedroom or my kitchen..
Now if you want to make sure that the government doesn't subsidize and in effect promote these "sins".....or make sure that NO taxpayers money goes towards the purchase of these "heathen" items....no problem.
Note: I did not come up with the phrase "sin tax" but it is commonly used to describe cigarette, alcohol, etc. taxes.
- spidey
However, I think the notion of "sin" here doesn't mean the same thing to all parties. After all, opponents of gay marriage who see being gay as sinful aren't asking for it to be taxed as a deterrent. They want to see if banned outright.
The equivalent - with sodas - would be a law that outright bans sugary drinks, like what Prohibition did for alcohol. But that's an entire magnitude of difference from a tax.
Apples/oranges.
Moreover, there's the kind of "sins" which double as forms of moral danger vs. sins that are seen as sinful because they're bad literal public health costs and concerns. No one's really making a persuasive argument that, say, premarital sex or easy divorce are public health issues. In contrast, I think those who want to levy taxes of sodas or alcohol or tobacco have been extremely successful in moving *away* from moral arguments and instead, have framed their rhetoric around "costs" and "health outcomes."
In essence, they wouldn't describe their actions as support "sin taxes" because they wouldn't frame their goals in that kind of particular, moral language. It's really OPPONENTS to these taxes who wheel out the "sin taxes" or "nanny state" arguments.
(all this said, I understand where Rich is coming from. And as noted earlier in the thread, I think the common ground here, ideologically, is that we can all agree that getting rid of subsidies that artificially lower the price of corn, and thus corn syrup, is a worthwhile goal).
2) Moral language = Semantics, since the word sin is usually based in religion but is not when used by our society as "sin taxes".
3) While I am not inclined to do it, an argument can be made about promiscuous sex leading to STD's which infect nearly as many people in the U.S. as are obese. Yet I doubt anyone here would be in favor of an STD treatment tax. Apple/Oranges due only to orifices.
What's wrong with taxing non-foods and using the revenue to educate against these non-foods and subsidize things like carrots and spinach? I think most people agree that the fact that a 2 liter soda and a box of twinkies cost a lot less than a bag of carrots is fucked up in a big way. Since when are cheaper vegetables (that are used for food, not non food like corn syrup) a threat to liberty?
The analogy is taxing a behavior, promiscuous sex vs. drinking crap, that both have negative health impacts on our society. Of course you can't tax the sex itself so you would have to tax the cure in order to "punish" or help curtail that behavior. You could also use the STD tax money for sex education. The logic is similar.
Did you read the link that Odub posted? I think it will answer your above question.
I just read a very compelling article about how red meat is very bad for you and causes major health issues amongst those who consume it.
Red meat however is still a food, it has protein, iron, vitamins...people have been eating it for hundreds, if not thousands of years. True they havent been eating factory farmed corn-fed red meat for that length of time...the "factory farmed" "subsidized corn"-fed are the terms that matter here, and we are back to corn subsidies. It is a question of food versus non-food. Red Meat, although thought to be bad for you is still a food, mountain dew is a non-food. The fact that non-food injestibles are cheaper to produce than real food is really fucked up. Also when you tax something, you use a word that most people respond to, they pay attention to it as "tax" has been a boogey man in our society for awhile now.."taxes" bring attention to a subject...the more educated among us pay attention and discuss it, like we are doing now...the dipshits of the nation wave a "don't tread on me" flag and act like it is a violation of "liberty" for it to occur. Lets tax certain ingedients...once corn is no longer yellow and isn't used for cooking, popping and doesnt show up in your poop...tax the shit outta it, make corn-fed beef prohibitably expensive, make corn-syrup more expensive than gasoline, make nitrates cause a hot dog to cost $5. Over time, people will stop buying those things if they are concerned with their wallets. Wallet size will always be more important to the majority than waist-size.
I hear what you're saying .....but you can go into a restaurant and order water, for free, which is certainly cheaper than any corn syrup drink. If wallet watching was the motivation people would be drinking what is free...but they are not. Taxing the end user rather than stopping subsidies(which I think everyone in this thread agrees should be done) is like arresting the street corner dealer while the government continues to run mass quantities of drugs and reaping the cash.
I'd personally like to see marijuana legalized so that as an adult I have the choice to smoke it or not. I am certain similar arguments have been and will be made as a way to either prevent this from happening or taxing the shit out of it if it does. I don't agree with that mindset and if that is some "don't tread on me" bullshit, so be it.
I really do think that the myths that we are operating under which are exposed and debunked in the article Odub posted should be recognized by us "more educated" folks.
Candy should be next......chocolate is a vice not a food......Meat is Murder and there are folks that would like to see it banned from being a "food" irregardless of it's long history....of course you and I would draw the line there but supporters would say that's because we're not as "educated" as they are.
And if the financial strain on society is the motivation we need to look at studies that compare the total life time financial burden of the obese smoker who dies prematurely as a result vs. the relatively healthy person who lives way past the average age.
If the motivation is to look out for your fellow adult and make sure they have a healthy life even if they personally aren't motivated to pursue one, that is a noble but impossible pursuit.
Like I said earlier...end subsidies, don't use taxpayer money to allow the purchase of these drinks and I'll even add needing to be an "adult" to buy them....but taxing/legislating morality is a fools errand imo.
cosign that to the letter
its not really about the individual obesity case for me, its about the public costs related to their obesity. so why should we subsidize corn in order to create immense profits for GMA members who then pass the health related costs on to taxpayers? a soda tax might not reduce the amount consumed, but it will help defray public expenditures that could be going to roads and schools. the nanny state has her legs wide open for corporations who are simultaneously sucking at the boobs
Sin taxes in modern economic terms amount to excise, or per unit, taxes that are chiefly designed to reduce specific behaviors thought to be harmful to society. Sin taxes have played roles of varying importance throughout U.S. tax history. The ever-expanding list of taxable "sins" proposed by governments includes cigarettes, alcoholic beverages, gasoline, bullets, and, more recently, sugary soft drinks and fatty snacks.
In 1790, Alexander Hamilton proposed the first excise tax on whiskey to refund Revolutionary War debts, following Adam Smith's direction in the Wealth of Nations. Made immortal by the rebellion it spawned, Hamilton's whiskey tax was subsequently rescinded, but selective excise taxes have hardly disappeared. History reveals that federal excise taxes have been predominantly enacted as wartime emergency measures, and the majority of the taxes were customarily repealed when hostilities ended. Recently, however, the arguments for imposing new excise taxes and increasing existing ones have reemerged across party lines and have spawned several myths about the efficacy of sin taxation.
MYTH 1: SIN TAXES DISCOURAGE UNHEALTHY BEHAVIORS
State and local governments are increasingly imposing sin taxes as political activists try to force Americans to adopt their own version of "clean living." These taxes are designed to raise prices so that "sinful" goods become so expensive that consumers will give them up for something healthier. However, this rarely happens.
Research has shown that when the price of a "sinful" good increases, consumers often substitute an equally "bad" good in its place. For example, two studies found that teen marijuana consumption increased when states raised beer taxes or increased the minimum drinking age. Another study found that smokers in high-tax states are more likely to smoke cigarettes that are longer and higher in tar and nicotine than smokers in low-tax states. Specifically, they discovered that young adults aged 18???24 are much more responsive to tax changes than older smokers. For young smokers, the switch to cigarettes with higher tar and nicotine is so large that tax hikes actually increase average daily tar and nicotine consumption.
The federal government has also attempted to impose "hefty" taxes on sugared sodas and sports drinks to reduce obesity in the United States.6 The assumption is that this sin tax would reduce caloric intake because consumers would stop drinking high-calorie drinks and/or switch to lower-calorie drinks. However, as table 1 shows, if consumers respond to the proposed sin tax on sodas and sports drinks by switching to some of the potential substitute drinks, their caloric intake would either remain the same or actually increase.
MYTH 2: SIN TAXES ARE A GOOD WAY TO RAISE REVENUE
Although the underlying rationale for sin taxes is to discourage consumption of "sinful" products, it is often argued that the tax would also help raise revenue that would, in turn, be used to finance projects like federal health insurance. The problem with this argument is that these regulatory and revenue-raising justifications work at cross-purposes. If the tax is actually effective at discouraging consumption of a "sinful" good, after all, then there would be very little revenue raised because people would purchase much less of the more expensive good in question.
To help solve the obesity problem, some localities have already begun to impose "hefty" taxes on sugared sodas and sports drinks to reduce obesity in the United States. This appears to be most true for cigarette taxes as many continue to purchase cigarettes at the higher taxed prices. Recent anti-smoking initiatives at the federal, state, and local levels have gained unprecedented popular support, probably because of their ability to raise revenue. For instance, President Obama recently signed a law that increased federal tobacco excise taxes on a pack of cigarettes from $0.39 per pack to $1.01.9 However, as we shall see, the revenue raised is hardly ever used for its proposed purpose.
Furthermore, if the object is to raise the most revenue, economists generally prefer broad-based taxes to narrow-based "sin" taxes on efficiency grounds. In other words, economists have generally argued that the welfare loss resulting from excise taxation is significant enough to justify "spreading" taxes across many commodities.
MYTH 3: PRIMARY SUPPORT FOR SIN TAXATION COMES FROM CIVIC-MINDED CITIZENS
Generally speaking, people support taxes that benefit them directly; that is, they lobby for taxes to receive "rents." In many cases, two dissimilar groups may support taxes for completely different reasons and be wooed by revenue-hungry politicians. Bruce Yandle calls this phenomenon "Bootleggers and Baptists," an expression derived from an unlikely alliance that formed during Prohibition. Bootleggers, or those who smuggled alcohol illegally, gain business at the expense of their legal competitors, while Baptists, who sought to reduce alcohol consumption, see their moral goals legislated. For the result to be durable, both parts of the coalition must remain in place. For instance, the cooperation of "Baptist" government officials and ethanol producers have kept ethanol subsidies in place.
Another example of rent seeking is the 1987 lobbying effort by a coalition of nonprofit organizations to more than triple California's cigarette tax from 10 to 35 cents a pack. The tax was expected to raise over $500 million annually, much of which would ostensibly go to these very organizations for research, indigent medical care, and antismoking "education" campaigns. This obviously represents a huge conflict of interest for the nonprofit organizations: Are their lobbying efforts directed at the cause they fight or merely at raising funds for their organizations? When tax receipts first became available, the president of one of these nonprofits, the California Medical Association, actually admitted to legislators that his organization and the health charities were "fighting for this money like jackals over a carcass."
Nonprofits fighting for a particular cause also have to fear competition from the government. Often, they end up having to fight against politicians who are first and foremost interested in increasing government funding. For instance, a coalition of California nonprofit antismoking organizations, directed by the umbrella group Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights, brazenly sued Governor Pete Wilson for "illegally diverting" more than $165 million that supposedly should have been spent on "education" programs and instead was "improperly used for health screening and immunization of poor children. In fact, there is never any guarantee that tax funds will be used as advertised, and there is very little public control. These funds usually go into the general fund or toward other politically favored causes.
MYTH 4: SIN TAXES ARE FAIR
Sin taxes are regressive, falling disproportionately on consumers at the lower end of the income distribution. Not only do "lower income classes tend to lose slightly more of their total income than higher income classes..." on a wide range of excise-taxed products, but Daniel Suits actually found that excise taxes are the most regressive form of taxation.16
A significant number of studies, though somewhat controversial, argue that excise taxes have negative health consequences because they crowd out private expenditures, a portion of which would have been spent on private health and safety measures. This means that by instituting sin taxes, the government is effectively preventing people from spending their own money on things like safer cars, preventive medical check-ups, baby gates, and smoke detectors. Evidence shows that for every $15 million taken out of the hands of consumers, there is one statistical death. Another paper finds statistical evidence that the poor suffer more on the health front from dollars being crowded out by government policies.
MYTH 5: SIN TAXES ARE ThE BEST WAY TO CHANGE UNDESIRED BEHAVIOR
If the objective of sin taxation is to alter "objectionable" behavior, less-costly options exist in the private sector. For example, a coalition of scientists, academics, health organizations, food producers, and retailers developed the Smart Choices Program to better inform consumers about the nutritional characteristics of food.19 Through its front-of-pack labeling program, Smart Choices identifies healthier food and beverage choices within specified product categories. Unlike coercive government measures to tax unhealthy foods and beverages, this program provides the information people need to stay within their recommended caloric intake and make product-by-product nutritional comparisons at their discretion.
Another example is given by the Phoenix Companies Inc. insurance company, which has started offering discounts to customers who maintain a low Body Mass Index (BMI). Their program offers discounts up to 20 percent on life insurance policies to customers whose BMI is verified by a doctor to be between 19 to 25. In fact, most insurance companies already provide a discount for customers who do not smoke or drink. Private market programs and products like these that encourage and reward healthy lifestyles instead of punishing personal choices are more efficient solutions to curbing obesity than sin taxes on unhealthy products.
CONCLUSION
So-called sin taxes, even those passed with the best of intentions, have undesirable consequences because they contradict basic principles of economics, finance and, most importantly, free choice. In general, since proposals to tax lifestyle choices are concentrated on narrow consumer choices, they are rarely efficient. What's more, taxing sin usually does not end up significantly altering the "sinful" behavior but rather rewards the very private organizations or politicians who have lobbied for the tax. Also, sin tax revenue is collected primarily at the expense of the poor and crowds out private expenditures on health care.
Sin tax activists strongly believe that most citizens are inherently incapable of making consumption decisions for themselves. Carried to its logical extreme, "the notion that any product or lifestyle choice that even remotely contributes to health care costs should be taxed to help finance public spending would leave nothing untaxed."23 Once it becomes "legitimate for government to protect individuals from their own follies,"24 there is no way to establish limits to governmental powers. As Nobel Prize winner James Buchanan pointed out, any attempt of a government to restrict private consumption choices with sin taxes is nothing but a "meddlesome preference."25
all the points made in the above letter make sense, but only with "sins" with no alternative...drinking, smoking..the alternative is not doing it. We all need to eat, we don't need to use tobacco or alcohol, recreational drugs...again the only alternative to them is not using them. You cannot use the same argument for food.
So call corn syrup/soda a vice and not a food....no one will argue that point.
Anti-meat folks will argue you can get protein and every other nutritional value in meat from other sources....they don't give a shit how it was raised.
There is a huge issue, maybe it's been brought it up, i haven't read through the thread intensely:
Fountain soda is the single most profitable thing in any restaurant. Actually profitable doesn't even describe the markup - It costs on average about 8 cents per cup to make (on site) and is sold at well over a dollar, each and every time. It's water, gas and syrup in a box. Without soda most restaurants would not be able to stay open. I know that sounds crazy but it is pretty much true.
More immediate than taxes and subsides would be the profit hit restaurants would take should soda be taxed or regulated. Not saying it's a bad or good thing, but it would create a nightmare in the streets.
I don't think the bill being considered in NYC would have that much of an impact on restaurants. It's basically a ban on bottles of soda over 16oz. I don't think most restaurants serve larger sizes anyway, unless you're counting fast food chains.
Most mouthbreathing politicians are going to spin the ending of subsidies on corn as a "rise in taxes on the hard working American farmer"...you know this is what would happen. So adding a tax/ending subsidies are going to be called the same thing.
I would argue that the anti-corn syrup lobby is larger and more powerful than any "lets ban meat" lobby...now and in the near future.
Vegetarians/Vegans will not now nor in the near future get anything "banned" for any reason be it moral/health/etc.
A 51 year old vegetarian, professional TV cook that promotes the banning of meat and dairy, advocates colonic cleansing and living a "clean" lifestyle: Gillian McKeith (I had the name wrong-edit)
Another 51 year professional TV cook who advocates eating meat, dairy and drinking wine and cocktails: Nigella Lawson
not saying one is right and one is wrong, but who do you think most Americans would listen to in terms of health...who looks healthier?