California City May Tax Sugary Drinks Like Cigarettes 842
Hugh Pickens writes "Voters in Richmond, California are set to decide in November whether to make the Bay Area city the nation's first municipality to tax soda and other sugary beverages to help fight childhood obesity. The penny-per-ounce tax, projected to raise between $2 million and $8 million, would go to soccer fields, school gardens and programs to treat diabetes and fight obesity. Councilman Jeff Ritterman, a doctor who proposed the measure, says soda is a prime culprit behind high childhood obesity rates in Richmond, where nearly 20 percent of residents live below the poverty line. 'If you look at where most of our added sugar is coming, it's coming from the sugar-sweetened beverages,' says Ritterman. 'It's actually a poison for you, because your liver can't handle that huge amount of fructose.' Not everyone is pleased by the proposed license fee on businesses selling sweetened drinks. It would require owners of bodegas, theaters, convenience stores and other outlets to tally ounces sold and, presumably, pass the cost on to customers. Soda taxes have failed elsewhere — most notably in Philadelphia, where Mayor Michael A. Nutter's attempts to impose a 2-cents-per-ounce charge on sugary drinks have sputtered twice. However, Dr. Bibbins-Domingo says similar taxes on cigarettes have had a dramatic effect on public health. 'It was a few decades ago when we had high rates of tobacco and we had high rates of tobacco-related illnesses. Those measures really turned the tide and really led to lower rates of tobacco across the country.'"
What a terrible idea (Score:5, Interesting)
Taxing soda won't do anything but hand over more money to the government. It won't stop a thing and people know it.
Want to stop children drinking soda? then simply make it illegal for them to do so. (Which I don't agree with)
Apples to HFCS Orange Flavored Drink (Score:5, Interesting)
Tax driving, because it can kill you.
Uh, I think a lot of counties and states do tax driving. Property taxes on vehicles, taxes in the form of registration, fines if you're caught without insurance (to pay for said deaths), the list goes on and on in that respect. So that's already been taken care of.
Tax running because it can cause joint problems.
In this case, I think any study would find that the benefits of running (on average) far outweigh joint problems. I'm pretty sure runners live a lot longer than non-runners and experience far less negative health effects than sedentary individuals.
Tax all non-"organic" foods because they contain neurotoxins.
It's for our own good.
You are so full of shit, it's hilarious. All non-"organic" food contains neurotoxins? Bananas? Potatoes? Horseshit. You know as well as I do that the FDA and a number of other watchdog groups keep their eyes on what you will actually find in a supermarket and that those pesticides and crap they do find are put through rigorous tests on other mammals to ascertain their safety. And, yes, the company responsible will find a very steep "tax" should that link ever arise -- just look at what happens in the cases of tainted produce that somehow make it through the processes involved to ensure they are safe.
What you don't seem to understand is that sweeteners have enjoyed an artificially low price due to subsidies [dailyfinance.com] and these subsidies are the reason why you can buy a big gulp at 7 eleven for pennies when there are 744 calories in that thing. Just like smoking, cities should be able to decide what measures need to be taken when lobbyist groups cause soda to be less expensive than water and this "tax" is actually an adjustment to reflect the true cost of these products. If you think that you're not being taxed already to pay for subsidies to make people fat that in turn drives up health care costs to everyone, you just can't comprehend the big picture.
Don't even get me started on how US corn subsidies and NAFTA have destroyed Mexico's farming and forced millions to turn to other crops like drugs.
Farm subsidies (Score:5, Interesting)
Here come the "responsiblity" blowhards. (Score:5, Interesting)
For everyone furiously typing their post that includes words like "choice" "responsibility" and other good words you've cynically crafted in to politically charged euphamisims.
1. There is an obesity problem
2. It is linked to sugary drinks
3. The price of sugary drinks is artificially low due to government subsidies
4. Why do you support government handouts that hurt the public?
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
What Else Do We Do? (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, this on the surface seems like an overreaching nanny state tax. Consider this though.
So what do you do about this? Let people eat up our healthcare system with obesity related illnesses (no pun intended), or try things out to fix the problem? The government has run educational programs before with little success. Taxing sugar almost seems like a reasonable alternative at this point.
complicate much? (Score:3, Interesting)
How about instead of taxing them we end the god damn subsidies instead? The god damn corn farmers are ridiculously subsidized which is why we can afford super cheap soda with super cheap corn syrup in it. Soda so cheap because we paid for it with our tax dollars already! End the god damn subsidy instead of adding yet another retarded tax.
Same god damn gasoline. Oil producers are heavily subsidized, so our gas is only $3/gal because we collectively pay HUGE subsidies to the oil industry to make it cheap. On top of that there's a tax too! Why so complicated? Holy batman, end the god damn subsidies!
oh... and all these "taxed enough already" tea party fuckers are all for "reduce taxes, reduce government spending" are against cutting subsidies! A subsidy is a tax that we pay to private businesses. Oil subsidy = oil industry's tax on people. Corn farming subsidy = corn farmer's tax on people. Stupid.
I Guess I Have to Spell It Out (Score:5, Interesting)
subsidies are there to maintain a stable food market...and it works.
No, subsidies exist to feed money into corporate farms that in turn give their lobbying groups the edge to make sure that they come out turning taxpayer dollars into profit (often with negative or little disposition towards the family farms and little guys).
Soda are marginally cheaper because of it. Less then a penny a liter.
That's not true at all. To come to that conclusion, you're taking the billions of dollars that the federal government is paying out to farmers and dividing it across the number of servings in that time frame. But that's not the true net effect of what those subsidy dollars have on the industry. The market is literally flooded with corn now that ethanol subsidies have been put in place and removed. The price is going to plummet and you'll be able to make as much HFCS as you want for nothing. The amount the government put in to bait these farmers into this system is paltry compared to the effect it's going to have on the price of corn. You didn't even read the article I linked to, did you? A ton of people are producing corn right now thinking they're going to get a ton of money just like last year as that corn is turned into "green" ethanol and when that doesn't happen [nytimes.com], HFCS will basically be free for soda manufacturers. Hell, the government (read: taxpayer) will probably end up paying (er, "incentivizing") again to prevent that corn from rotting in the fields.
"Don't even get me started on how US corn subsidies and NAFTA have destroyed Mexico's farming and forced millions to turn to other crops like drugs." Since it isn't true, there is nothing to start.
Citation granted [mcclatchydc.com]. You don't realize it, but the poorest parts of Mexico are suffering from the above subsidies paid for on my and your dime.
Re:Farm subsidies (Score:4, Interesting)
Farm subsidies are not intended to make our food cheaper. They are intended so local farmers can compete with cheaper import from underdeveloped countries.
Without farm subsidies we will still have cheap food, but local farmers will disappear and the country will face a strategic risk (in case of hostilities to the rest of the world that in the case will be feeding us, we being on the verge of that case anyway).
If you want our food to be expensive you will have to not only remove subsidies from local farmers, but also tax heavily imported food.
Re:Farm subsidies (Score:5, Interesting)
Wrong again. Farm subsidies are intended to stabilize the food supply by giving farmers a less variable return on investment. Farmers still need to sell the stuff to come out ahead, but at least they know that a bushel of wheat won't be worth nothing if there's a surplus. The reason subsidies most impact foods like corn, wheat, and soy is because those foods can be put in a silo and remain viable for much longer.
Re:People should pay for their choices (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm going to be blunt here. Many of the poor/indigent became that way due to poor life choices or less than stellar intelligence. Not all, by any means, but it is safe to say that an appreciable percentage fail to regularly make decisions that would improve their quality of life. Please note I'm NOT saying that they should just be left to rot or ignored, but rather that not all of their plight it pushed upon them by the 1%. Shoot, we recently had an event that had free blood tests and even radiology work. FREE. I cannot believe we are the only health system doing these types of things, but perhaps we really are just that far ahead of the game.