Junk food tax: Fighting obesity one penny at a time

February 25, 2011

A California lawmaker is targeting the obesity epidemic by proposing a penny-an-ounce tax on soda and other sweetened drinks. That's good, but why not expand it to tax all junk food?

Let's call it what it is: a sin tax.

A California lawmaker is targeting the obesity epidemic with a tax that would slap a penny-an-ounce levy on drinks sweetened with sugar or corn syrup.

The food industry, not surprisingly, has squared off against the idea, arguing that the tax bill is a punitive assault on personal choice.

"The government doesn't have the right to social engineer," said J. Justin Wilson, senior research analyst at the industry-backed Center for Consumer Freedom. "It doesn't have a right to protect us from ourselves."

More: http://www.fox8.com/health/la-fi-lazarus-20110225,0,2569343.column

and it passed and was in effect for about a year or two. Industry got rid of it at the next election bu running millions of ads. Losing this tax has contributed to all kinds of health care cuts for the poor, disabled and elderly.
Good thing the Proctor and Gambles of the country got their way.

Losing this tax has contributed to all kinds of health care cuts for the poor, disabled and elderly.

NO, what made all those cuts was the fact that the GOP is making a coordinated effort to give the poor and middle classes nothing! Don't blame it all on Soda. What also helped is that a bunch of Yuppies don't really care about the poor,disabled and elderly, because they think, just like the right wing, that such fates belong to bad people, not good yuppies that eat their high priced organic food grown in china.

Besides, in case you do not realize, it is expensive to eat Healthy now, in part because a bunch of suckers told the market they would pay double the money for rotting fruit if they called it organic!

It has been a game of catch up. Tax cut initiatives usually pass. The legislature tries to come up with new taxes - as in the soda tax and that was votedd out. Now with the 2/3 majority needed to pass tax increases and now I guess fees - we are in big trouble.
The voting down of the soda tax was the last straw for the Democrats - their only solution is cuts. Most of the cuts have been in the area of health care. I am one of those cut - no more health care.

I agree there is a concerted effort on the part of the RW. I also agree that many yuppie types are very self-centered and consider themselves superior to others. I believe that greed is considered a virtue now. I also believe that our country is rotting at the core. I hardly even blame politicians anymore. It is the values of the voters that is showing itself now and it is not good.

Soda and candy bars are in a category separate from nutrition. This tax had nothing to do with whether or not food was organic.

Ah, the power and control!

That's what they did to cigerettes!!!!!!

I don't care for "junk food" and I don't care for soda, but at what point do we teach folks nutrition rather than rubbing their noses in their "mistakes" so to speak?

And another issue too, who gets to decide what constitutes junk food. That by itself is another political football that is open field for lobbying,

It's crazy to give money to people to grow (or not grow) the crops, then tax the end products.

are fine, because they produce revenue for profit junkies.

How about a junk-food advertising tax, just to be fair? Let the pushers pay for enticing the users.

Fuck em

And Heaven forbid we raise taxes on the rich.

This is simply insanity, and it will not end well.