Cali Wants to Limit Your Kid's Soda Consumption

BarryBwana

Well-Known Member
I thought these type of deterrence taxes or "socially responsible taxes" have been shown to be largely ineffective at actually reducing the target behavior/consumption?

My support for such a tax is the premise that if health care is a public good then those who make willing decisions to drive up the cost of that public good, especially when having viable alternatives, should be forced into paying more into that public good when making such decisions.

Also, if I'm not mistaken isn't pop largely high fructose corn syrup which is obviously a corn byproduct? Isn't corn massively subsidized?

I do find it a little ironic that the governments who have given huge amounts of tax dollars to essentially make products like pop cheap (intentionally or unintentionally originally, it is known about and yet not stopped ) now view those products as needing their consumers be deterred from them via even more taxes.

Wouldn't a better strategy be to lessen or regulate these subsidies so that a bottle of pop is not cheaper than a bottle of water?

It does seem a bit of "we used tax dollars in a way that directly/indirectly is causing a huge health epidemic and to address it we won't cease using your tax dollars that way but we'll just throw another tax out there to help you make the right decision. Now we won't promise to use these additional tax funds to address the problem or help deal with the epidemic, but im sure it will help stop you from making the bad decisions we help subsidize".

Thoughts?
 

Fogdog

Well-Known Member
I thought these type of deterrence taxes or "socially responsible taxes" have been shown to be largely ineffective at actually reducing the target behavior/consumption?

My support for such a tax is the premise that if health care is a public good then those who make willing decisions to drive up the cost of that public good, especially when having viable alternatives, should be forced into paying more into that public good when making such decisions.

Also, if I'm not mistaken isn't pop largely high fructose corn syrup which is obviously a corn byproduct? Isn't corn massively subsidized?

I do find it a little ironic that the governments who have given huge amounts of tax dollars to essentially make products like pop cheap (intentionally or unintentionally originally, it is known about and yet not stopped ) now view those products as needing their consumers be deterred from them via even more taxes.

Wouldn't a better strategy be to lessen or regulate these subsidies so that a bottle of pop is not cheaper than a bottle of water?

It does seem a bit of "we used tax dollars in a way that directly/indirectly is causing a huge health epidemic and to address it we won't cease using your tax dollars that way but we'll just throw another tax out there to help you make the right decision. Now we won't promise to use these additional tax funds to address the problem or help deal with the epidemic, but im sure it will help stop you from making the bad decisions we help subsidize".

Thoughts?
Overwrought

The objective is to reduce high sugar (yes, mostly HFCS) by raising the cost 25 cents. Another aspect of the bill is to repeal a recent bill that bans cities from adding on tax.

I don't live in Cali. I'm not sure how I'd vote on the measure either. Im not making a claim one way or the other about the effectiveness of the tax. I'm just pointing out that all the hyperbole about "taking your soda away" is just crap that was smeared about by the beverage lobbyists and regurgitated here. I hate fucking right wing propaganda and the shit said here is exactly that.

Other than having farmers in CA, the state has little to do with DC's farm subsidy bills.

If we want to rant about how corn and soybean subsidies are wrecking the environment to no other public good, I'm down with that. Corn ethanol is a regretful use of public subsidies. Probably ought to be a different thread.
 

newgrow16

Well-Known Member
California legislature passes approximately 5,000 new laws each year. This has been going on for over 14 years which equals about 70,000 laws passed by the California legislature since 2004.

Yet the idiots still rule.
 

Fogdog

Well-Known Member
California legislature passes approximately 5,000 new laws each year. This has been going on for over 14 years which equals about 70,000 laws passed by the California legislature since 2004.

Yet the idiots still rule.
This is an initiative, not a bill passed through the legislature. That said, I moved from CA a while ago. You are correct in that they keep passing bills into law but don't sunset laws with the new ones. It pretty much means that the justice system in CA picks and chooses when and where to enforce their laws.
 

Rob Roy

Well-Known Member
Roy is just like @Padawanbater2 in this regard. I try to stick to a subject and they keep trying to deflect it to their particular philosophical nonsense and hangups.

Except you're wrong, since the thing you are talking about is a "soda tax" according to you to discourage consumption of soda.

Is it possible the legislative douches reasoning is because soda is a contributor to obesity ? Not too hard to connect that a soda tax is a kind of obesity tax.

So, are you okay with government instituting an obesity tax ?
 

Rob Roy

Well-Known Member
I thought these type of deterrence taxes or "socially responsible taxes" have been shown to be largely ineffective at actually reducing the target behavior/consumption?

My support for such a tax is the premise that if health care is a public good then those who make willing decisions to drive up the cost of that public good, especially when having viable alternatives, should be forced into paying more into that public good when making such decisions.

Also, if I'm not mistaken isn't pop largely high fructose corn syrup which is obviously a corn byproduct? Isn't corn massively subsidized?

I do find it a little ironic that the governments who have given huge amounts of tax dollars to essentially make products like pop cheap (intentionally or unintentionally originally, it is known about and yet not stopped ) now view those products as needing their consumers be deterred from them via even more taxes.

Wouldn't a better strategy be to lessen or regulate these subsidies so that a bottle of pop is not cheaper than a bottle of water?

It does seem a bit of "we used tax dollars in a way that directly/indirectly is causing a huge health epidemic and to address it we won't cease using your tax dollars that way but we'll just throw another tax out there to help you make the right decision. Now we won't promise to use these additional tax funds to address the problem or help deal with the epidemic, but im sure it will help stop you from making the bad decisions we help subsidize".

Thoughts?

I like that you brought up subsidies, which is just another way of forcibly redistributing power and wealth.
 

Fogdog

Well-Known Member
Except you're wrong, since the thing you are talking about is a "soda tax" according to you to discourage consumption of soda.

Is it possible the legislative douches reasoning is because soda is a contributor to obesity ? Not too hard to connect that a soda tax is a kind of obesity tax.

So, are you okay with government instituting an obesity tax ?
The objective of the bill in California is to reduce consumption of commercially made high sugar and high fructose corn syrup beverages (sodas). They are attempting to do so by adding a 25 cent tax. In addition, they are repealing a law that prevents cities from levying higher taxes on sodas. I don't know if a tax will achieve this objective. I don't know if I support it. I'm just correcting the false rhetoric from the soda lobby group that people are repeating here.

That's it. Everything you layer on top of the discussion is your own bias and iggies. I've already told you that you are boring, repetative and wrong. Please don't reply to my posts.

ps, A child cannot and is not able to rationally give his or her consent to have sex with an adult no matter what the adult wants to believe. There are no exceptions to this.
 

Rob Roy

Well-Known Member
The objective of the bill in California is to reduce consumption of commercially made high sugar and high fructose corn syrup beverages (sodas). They are attempting to do so by adding a 25 cent tax. In addition, they are repealing a law that prevents cities from levying higher taxes on sodas. I don't know if a tax will achieve this objective. I don't know if I support it. I'm just correcting the false rhetoric from the soda lobby group that people are repeating here.

That's it. Everything you layer on top of the discussion is your own bias and iggies. I've already told you that you are boring, repetative and wrong. Please don't reply to my posts.

ps, A child cannot and is not able to rationally give his or her consent to have sex with an adult no matter what the adult wants to believe. There are no exceptions to this.

TLDR
 
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