Michael-5 said:
Kasz216 said:
Michael-5 said:
Kasz216 said:
In general by the way. Taxing junk food, just like taxing cigarettes and alcohol will accomplish one thing.
It will make the poor... Poorer.
Tons of people still smoke, tons of people still drink. ESPECIALLY the poor.
It will be the same with fast food, but worse. Since people need food.
As an example...
Low-income smokers, defined as individuals in households making less than $30,000 a year, spent an average of 23.6 percent of the annual household income on cigarettes. That number is up from 11.6 percent in 2003-2004 and in spite of increasing cigarette taxes imposed by the state and city governments.
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2012/09/22/state-funded-study-cigarette-tax-hurts-new-yorks-poor-most/#ixzz2PVeXyUVD
You really can't stop people from doing what they want. You can only hurt the poor by trying to do so.
If you were going to do anything to stop unhealthy eating i'd suggest three things
1) Drop the Corn Subsidy and the sugar import tax. (probably won't make much of a difference... but some.
2) Restrict Food Stamps to raw foods. Cut out soda, candy, ice cream... hell TV dinners and frozen chicken nuggets. Additionally restrict an upper limit on price paid per unit. Since a big problem is people buying things like expensive steak and lobster and selling them for 1/3rd the price for money.
If you can't do that. Offer a bonus. Like you get 30% more money for buying the above foods. So if you spent 100 on fruits and vegetables, foodstamps pays 100 but only charges you 70.
3) Make restaurants post nutritional facts on the menu. Helps for the rare cases where there is something deceiving. |
A Lot less people smoke now, you know that right? Not sure about drinking since it's been taxed for so long, and any studies to the 1900's would be largely irrelevant, but smoking has largely been cut back and lung cancer is no longer the leading cause of death in North Americans (it used to be, i believe).
As for poor people smoking, yes they are spending 10% more of their income on cigarettes, but how many of them are there? I bet you less then 25% of people smoke now compared to 2003.
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Well first off... a lot less people smoke... not due to any sort of government regulation or taxation but because smoking has just stopped being "cool"... and the people who started before people knew how healthy it was are dieing off.
Secondly... no... not even close. Smoking has decreased but nowhere near a 3 to 1 drop.
Well unless there was a MEGA drop in the last 3 years or so.
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http://www.sharecare.com/question/do-less-people-smoke-pastd
I'm reading that it's been a 25% reduction since the 1960's, and only recently it's starting to plateau.
http://www.patient.co.uk/health/Smoking-The-Facts.htm
In UK there was a 32% reduction from 1972 to 1990.
We also agree on the 20% figure now, so do you deny that 45% of people smoked in the 60's/70's?
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You said you thought less then 25% people smoke now compaired to 2003. Which means that if you though 100 people smoked in 2003, that 24 people smoke now in 2012.
The great reduction of smoking since the 60's, 70's came from people being made aware of how unhealthy smoking was. Newer younger generations smoked less because they found out how unhealthy it was, while addicted people smoked until they got to the point of where they died or were forced to quit because of harsh illness.
Not from cigarrette taxes. It's the same now really. Smoking reduction comes primarily from young people just not smoking as much as older people because younger people know better now/cancer is stimitized now... and old people who smoked dieing.
Education is all that changes behavior. Taxes and regulations only hurt the poor.
Well also alchoholics.
Would the whole sugar tax apply to booze? Afterall it's quite sugary. A lot of ex-alchohlics actually drink TONS of soda per day because they feel the urge to replace all that sugar that was in their beer/liquor.
Healthy? No. Better then them going back to being alcholics though.
