Tax Junk Food/Regulate Contents?

[Kasz216]

dsgrue3 said:

famousringo said:

See my previous post in this thread. About half of American health expenditure is paid by government, which means taxpayers have a stake in the health of many millions of Americans. The stake is even greater in the rest of the developed world where health care is universal. The case for taxing unhealthy foods is fundamentally the same as the case for taxing cigarettes or mandating seatbelts. Your bad health decisions cost everybody else money.

Sorry, but taxpayers don't get to decide where their money is spent; otherwise welfare wouldn't exist. I incur no additional taxation as a result of others' poor health. My tax rate is only affected by my income level and filing status. Operative word "my".

And you have failed to address people who snack occasionally - they will be paying more for the same food simply as a result of some fat person's irresponsibility. That isn't remotely logical. It's the same story with weapons. Some insane, socially-retarded, infantile derelict shoots up a school and suddenly it's the weapon's fault. 

I disagree... if you went with taxpayer based budgeting model... (That is the taxpayer decides what his taxes will pay the next year).   I bet most Welfare would be one of the first things that filled up... espiecally stuff like WIC

Various farm subsidies where we pay farmers, price supports and the like would probably go pretty quickly though, assistance to help poor people get home loans would likely go, stuff like that.  

The "mid level" welfare that's less about taking care of the poor and more about trying to elevate the poor.  That stuff that doesn't actually focus on the poor.

A LOT of government employees salaries would likely take huge hits, and specific unpopular military stuff would be gone.