Do you think there should be an excise tax added to sugar and foods with high content of sugar?
Dodgerfan
2012/06/12 02:39:51
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10 votes
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51 votes
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6 votes
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Tobacco and alcoholic beverages are heavily taxed so why not sugar? It is doing serious damage to our health and escalating the cost of medical care. We could surely use the funds for the decaying infrastructure instead of decaying teeth.
Top Opinion
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c.stuartHardwick 2012/06/12 04:22:05No
+6I don't know about a tax. How about we STOP THE BLOODY SUBSIDIES? See how fast the republican's backtrack when you suggest actually stopping government interference in the market.
1. Why give the government any more money? So they can spend it on whatever they want and not what we want them to spend it on? I'd say it's time we stop giving them any money at all, funk them. Yes that means Funk the IRS too. Let's cut them off the same way you would cut off your child is all s/he does is buy drugs and booze with their money.
2. Aren't we sick and damned tired of a central government telling us WTF to do and not to do yet, telling us now what to eat? Who are these new Americans that seem to grab their heels and beg for vaseline? WTF?
I'm undecided on the sugary treats. Yes, I love some every now and then, but we're already taxed to the hilt on everything else.
I know $2 billion won't balance the budget but eliminate this potentially harmful subsidy....and you never know a couple of billion here a couple of billion there and before you know it, you are talking about real money.
1) Don't change things unless it is necessary and you are confident the change is for the better.
2) Seek to minimize government market interference while protecting the integrity of the market process
3) Seek to minimize government interference with individual lifestyle decisions while protecting the collective interests.
This leads to specific strategies:
1) Reduce the size of federal government by eliminating unnecessary rules and regulations.
2) Balance the federal budget by reducing government expenses and increasing government revenue. (NOTE: Federal spending has two categories; investment and expense. I do not favor reducing Federal investments because over time this increases the deficit. During periods of high unemployment, I can support increasing Federal investment even though it increases the deficit because such investments should increase Federal revenue in the outlying years.)
3) Link taxes to government services when possible and avoid using taxes to achieve social objectives.
These values and strategies make the question of a tax on sugar interesting. Since the high sugar consumption increases health care costs; the govern...
1) Don't change things unless it is necessary and you are confident the change is for the better.
2) Seek to minimize government market interference while protecting the integrity of the market process
3) Seek to minimize government interference with individual lifestyle decisions while protecting the collective interests.
This leads to specific strategies:
1) Reduce the size of federal government by eliminating unnecessary rules and regulations.
2) Balance the federal budget by reducing government expenses and increasing government revenue. (NOTE: Federal spending has two categories; investment and expense. I do not favor reducing Federal investments because over time this increases the deficit. During periods of high unemployment, I can support increasing Federal investment even though it increases the deficit because such investments should increase Federal revenue in the outlying years.)
3) Link taxes to government services when possible and avoid using taxes to achieve social objectives.
These values and strategies make the question of a tax on sugar interesting. Since the high sugar consumption increases health care costs; the government pays almost half the health care costs; it can be argued that a tax on sugar like the tax on cigarettes is really a usage fee. ... but adding a tax on sugar would create additional rules and regulations...so strategy 1 is in conflict with strategy 3. This led me to research the federal rules concerning sugar and as I suspected, there are lots of rules; import quotas, domestic production subsidies; etc. America has been using sugar to bully other countries and buy farmers votes for far to long. I didn't get near to finished but my recommendation to those considering the public health implications of sugar consumption:
Before adding new regulations, lets review the ones we have....It wouldn't surprise me to discover after we do this, the market will eliminate America's excess sugar consumption and we won't need any use tax at all.
The subsidy for sugar production was sufficient to make this point.
I don't support any taxes.
And BTW I'll take natural sugar over the chemical soup of atifical sweetners any day.
"You can't even run your own life, I'll be damned if you'll run mine!"
-- Sunshine (Go Away Today), 1971--