and used the income tax of working people to cure poverty

As soon as the idiot tax kicks in, we'll be able to pay off the national debt.

Bwahahahahahahahha!

Ah, they want to cure obesity. Ok, then why did you impose an additional tax on gym memberships at the same time? Wouldn't you want people to exercise?

i think their main goal was to try and balance the budget. i think the obesity thing was more of a possible bonus.

just a hunch though.

Cork on Fork: Ah, they want to cure obesity. Ok, then why did you impose an additional tax on gym memberships at the same time? Wouldn't you want people to exercise?

Isn't a gym fee fall under a flexible savings account?

You know, just like the government has used tobacco taxes to cure cancer

Christ, we're working on it, keep your pants on.

/posted from the National Cancer Institute

Is that why they're going to tax gym memberships, too?

So what? Smoking taxes and anti-smoking campaigns helped reduce the number of smokers, so taxing pop could work the same way.

/fatass

obligatory

Yo mamma so fat, it takes her two trips to haul ass.
Yo mamma so fat, she put on a pair of BVDs and when the elastic stretched it spelled BOULEVARD.
Yo mamma so fat, she's got three smaller women orbiting around her.

PoopStain: Has there ever been a municipality that uses tobacco taxes to fund smoking cessation programs? Usually they toss a token dollar or two towards television commercials and use the rest to shore up failing budgets.

I think there was one state where the courts handcuffed the legislators into spending the money on what it was meant for, but I don't remember which. And I am pretty sure the legislators changed the law after they were thwarted from raiding it.

Change we can believe in. 2009 will be the year of Taxes and "Fees".

No cure for government fat budgets.

Because taxing soda will make your kids more physically active.

/facepalm

Just deny social welfare benefits to the obese. We have the fattest poor in NYC. The rest have to purchase a license to walk on the sidewalks and display it like a license plate. The government can make some extra coin with vanity fat ass plates.

Fart_Machine: Because taxing soda will make your kids more physically active.

/facepalm

I wonder what drinking lots of aspartame will do for kids.

atlanta_ufo: No cure for government fat budgets.

no doubt the government should tax the shiat out of itself.....
huurrrrrrrzzzz and whargbles a;lsdj;lfkajs;lkdjf

Nemo's Brother: Change we can believe in. 2009 will be the year of Taxes and "Fees".

and getting face slapped with the penis of the iron fist of the establishment ....

absoluteparanoia: Cork on Fork: Ah, they want to cure obesity. Ok, then why did you impose an additional tax on gym memberships at the same time? Wouldn't you want people to exercise?

Isn't a gym fee fall under a flexible savings account?

I'll have to ask the wife to be sure, but I believe that's how we pay for ours.

Then again we could probably drop them. I only get to the gym twice a week :( She's a little better 3-4 times a week.

Only places in America where lung cancer rates are going up are in places where the tobacco tax is lower and public smoking bans haven't been put in place.

Well, to solve the obesity problem, we could simply start using our food as fuel to replace oil.

*or*

We could simply have another Black Plague to thin out the numbers. Then everyone would have to work just to clean up the mess. Viola!

I hope this doesn't pass, because then the rest of the states -- cash-starved and unwilling to cut budgets -- will propose the same thing with "New York does it" as their justification.

Meanwhile, New York will expand the tax to doughnuts, candy bars, and ice cream with "we already do this for soda" as their justification.

/Everybody predicted this slippery slope when they went after tobacco.

absoluteparanoia: Isn't a gym fee fall under a flexible savings account?

Not in my state.

thenateman: I hope this doesn't pass, because then the rest of the states -- cash-starved and unwilling to cut budgets -- will propose the same thing with "New York does it" as their justification.

Meanwhile, New York will expand the tax to doughnuts, candy bars, and ice cream with "we already do this for soda" as their justification.

/Everybody predicted this slippery slope when they went after tobacco.

Awesome, less fat people will make the inevitable Universal Healthcare cheaper.

FTA:

If we are to succeed in reducing childhood obesity, we must reduce consumption of sugared beverages. That is the purpose of our proposed tax. We estimate that an 18 percent tax will reduce consumption by five percent.


American sodas contain corn syrup, not sugar, so yeah, fail tag strikes again.


To address the obesity crisis, we need more than just a surcharge on soda. We need to take junk food out of our schools. We need to encourage our children to exercise more. And we need to increase the availability of healthy food in underserved communities.


Exactly, so how does a soda tax help any of that stuff? Isn't that kind of just personal responsibliity. I can still order my supersized big mac meal with an icead tea and *gasp* ADD AS MUCH SUGAR AS I WANT.

sooo much fail...

fark THE TAX MAN!

ochobit: Awesome, less fat people will make the inevitable Universal Healthcare cheaper.

Problem is it won't lessen the number of fat people. It'll just make more fat people poorer. The money will just go to bringing all the broke states back into the black.

God f*cking damnit, this is why I hate fatties. THIS IS WHY WE CAN'T HAVE NICE THINGS. F*ck.

Democrats have some good ideas, but the continued use of taxation (especially on the poor) for social engineering is why I can't vote for them. It's not like there are any healthy alternatives when it comes to food for poor people. You can get all the soda you can drink at a McDonald's or one tiny grade school sized carton of milk for about the same price. Tough choice.

/revenue generator barely disguised as health initiative
//anyone catch the NY Governor on SNL

Tobacco taxes have caused many people (myself included) to quit smoking.

It's easy to justify a pack of smokes when they're $2. When they're $8, it's another matter.

It is my choice and my body. I wish government would stay out of my fridge.

/amiright?

On the tobacco end, using a sin tax to coercively force people to quit an action is wrong. A sin tax should only be used to pay for the externalities caused by the sin. Anything else is authoritarianism.

He never said anything about "curing" obesity.

He said, rightfully -

1) It would raise 404 million dollars to be funneled into health care and anti-obesity programs.
2) It would reduce obesity rates in NY by 5%.
3) It would reduce the already 6 billion dollars the state pays in obesity related health care costs.

I know people are stupid, but really - how can anyone not see that this is a tax that will actually reduce expenditures. While, given the nature of government, this is unlikely to actually reduce overall taxes (unless it dramatically reduces consumption, something I find unlikely given how low the tax is), it will at the very least delay additional tax increases related to health care.

GAT_00: So what? Smoking taxes and anti-smoking campaigns helped reduce the number of smokers, so taxing pop could work the same way.

/fatass

Would taxing beer reduce the number of drinkers?
Yeah, didn't think so.

I used to smoke, and I enjoyed it. Yes, I knew it was stupid, but it was my own body, right? They kept raising the taxes, and I paid those taxes, and was angry. The government (state and local) made it almost impossible to find anywhere to smoke without breaking the law. I finally got fed up with the hassle and expense, and quit. They won't get another dime from me. But hey, now that they got used to that extra revenue, do you think they will be able to get by without it?

I drink very little soda, so now I'm going to sit back and enjoy all the complaining about this tax and all of the other new "sin" taxes that are coming. Hey, if it's good for the smokers, it's good for the rest of you, right?

And for all the non-smokers, non-fatties? They will get around to you later.

dogcow69:
American sodas contain corn syrup, not sugar, so yeah, fail tag strikes again.


Corn syrup is sugar.
Kinda like saying a Mac isn't a PC or iPod not an MP3 player.

dj_bigbird: Is that why they're going to tax gym memberships, too?


THIS!!!

awutwut: dogcow69:
American sodas contain corn syrup, not sugar, so yeah, fail tag strikes again.


Corn syrup is sugar.
Kinda like saying a Mac isn't a PC or iPod not an MP3 player.

yeah, high fructose corn syrup is made from corn so it's the same and sugar and just as good for you! Also cigarettes don't cause cancer, but they do help you lose weight and become more relaxed.

Smoking is down about 80%.

Remember kids:

Coke = bad
Diet coke = good

Sugar, corn syrup = bad
Artificial sweeteners = good

Us smokers tried to tell you fatties that you're next.

sarcastrophe: Us smokers tried to tell you fatties that you're next.

Damn, you're so right! The question is who will the smokers and fatties be warning now...

Bungee jumpers? SUV drivers? People who smell funny? People with ironic slogans on their t-shirts?

Nobody's safe thanks to those damn liberals. I happen to agree with a lot of their views, and far more than those of conservatives, but I know full well they're not based on facts or logic. They just happen to be right more often.

P.S. Somebody told me diet sodas (and maybe the normal ones too, can't remember) increase appetite. As the rabbi from seinfeld said regarding fat-free foods, they might switch over to diet sodas and drink more of it, increasing their appetites and consuming more food, actually increasing their calorie intake. Are there studies on the amount of soda consumed by people who drink the diet ones vs those who drink the normal ones?

Wow, you completely misunderstood what I said.

1. The calories would not be from the soda, but from eating food due to increased appetite.
2. I'm not talking about stopping drinking any kind of soda. The increased appetite is allegedly from drinking soda (or maybe just diet soda).

Both of these seem very clear in what I wrote, so I don't know what you were thinking. A for effort, though.

Still trying to decide where I stand on this kind of thing, I don't have an ideology which tells me what to think in this situation.

The tax should definitely be at least enough to cover the externalities, and in this case I expect it won't exceed that amount (of course it's fuzzy, because you have to decide how much of the obesity 'epidemic' is caused by sugary drinks and how much it costs).

But if you have the choice of either getting $x from income tax, or $x from a fat tax, then from a purely economic perspective the latter is better, because you also save $y from the reduced level of obesity that results (less health expenses etc.). I guess it really depends how you feel about social engineering... I'm not against it in principle, as long as the benefits are clear and the manner in which it's done is not too oppressive. The smoking tax is a good example of social engineering being put to good use.

So yeah I'm for this, but could be persuaded otherwise.

One thing to add to that: ideally these kind of tax increases would be coupled with a lowering of the sales tax, to reduce the regressiveness of the tax. If I understand what's going on correctly, this is a great time to be lowering sales taxes, as long as the revenue loss is balanced out.

the oob: One thing to add to that: ideally these kind of tax increases would be coupled with a lowering of the sales tax, to reduce the regressiveness of the tax. If I understand what's going on correctly, this is a great time to be lowering sales taxes, as long as the revenue loss is balanced out.

Given the track record of most government tax plans - ain't gonna happen. Governments rarely accept giving up tax streams as programs will naturally expand to consume all new revenue.

My dad is on the board that decides where that money goes, and they aren't making dumb decisions.

Fatties can be solved by using less money, in the form of removing farm subsidies that keep healthy food priced out of the market for poor stupid people. But don't remove all the subsidies, that would be silly.

syberpud: the oob: One thing to add to that: ideally these kind of tax increases would be coupled with a lowering of the sales tax, to reduce the regressiveness of the tax. If I understand what's going on correctly, this is a great time to be lowering sales taxes, as long as the revenue loss is balanced out.

Given the track record of most government tax plans - ain't gonna happen. Governments rarely accept giving up tax streams as programs will naturally expand to consume all new revenue.

Yeah, the real world is always more mucky than thought experiments.