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Forums - Politics Discussion - Tax Junk Food/Regulate Contents?

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Tax Food with high concentrations of Salt/Fat/Sugar/HFCS?

Yes, tax anything high fat 7 12.28%
 
Yes, tax anything high salt 0 0%
 
Yes, tax anything high sugar 1 1.75%
 
Yes, tax anything with HFCS 0 0%
 
Yes, tax a combination of... 5 8.77%
 
Yes tax all of the above 10 17.54%
 
Maybe, not sure 0 0%
 
No, just lift the Corn Subsidy 12 21.05%
 
No, we can read a nutrition label fine 16 28.07%
 
See Results 4 7.02%
 
Total:55
kain_kusanagi on 04 April 2013
Michael-5 said:
kain_kusanagi said:
Michael-5 said:
kain_kusanagi said:
NO NO NO NO NO NO NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

We need less government interference not more. What kind of a country do you want to live in? I prefer the kind with real freedom and liberty. Taxation is just another form of control. If I had my way the only thing taxed would be income and it would be a flat 10% for everyone no matter what. No loopholes and no way out of it. If you make a dollar you pay 10cents. that's it. But if I had my way the government would be a lot smaller and spend less so we probably wouldn't even need a 10% tax.

Drop all subsidies, get rid of nanny laws and taxes, and go back to the basics of government.

If we all only paid 10% tax, then Doctors, and Landlords would just be accumulating wealth at ridiculous rates. If you were born into a rich family, own a large company, or just make a lot of $$$ you also have a higher responsibility to the poor. You already have mega-corporations in USA, Wal-Mart grosses more then Poland in a year, do the Waltons and Bill Gates really need billions of dollars? No.

 

Since when does anyone have the right to tell anyone how wealthy they can be? I could not be more against your assurtion that we should limit success. You do know that the rich tend to create a lot of jobs right?

But I would be willing to go with a tiered flat tax. 5% for the low income, 10% for the middle and 20% for the high income bracket. But like I said before, if the governement was smaller and didn't regulate our lives and waste so much money it could be less. Maybe just 1%, 5% and 10% for the three brackets.

You know Wal Mart makes more jobs then it takes away? However it makes meaningless minimum wage jobs.

Most people who are rich, are rich because they aren't generous with their money. They find ways to make products or companies which pay employees minimum wage (or less, a lot of stuff is made in China where minimum wage is less) so that they themselves can keep the money.

Are you talking about income tax? How low is income tax in USA? In Canada it starts at 20% for those who make I believe 20-35k a year and goes up to 41/48% for people who make over 100k (41% for the first 100k, 48% for everything after).

This makes sense, I have a friend who works at a poshe golf course where registration is 50k for the first year and 10k every year after. MOST of these people didn't earn their money, they inherited it. What good is money when it stays in the hands of people who didn't work for it? I understand if you worked hard and made a successful company that you deserve a lot of money, but at the same time the employees you hire to make your stuff deserve more then minimum wage too. Rich people are rich because they sell stuff for a lot more then it costs to make, and make jobs which generate little income. If we didn't heavily tax the rich, the rich would get richer and the poor would get poorer. Simple.


Nobody gets to decide how to spend other peoples money. Your friend has a job at that golf course because rich people want to golf there.

Yes I am talking about income tax. If I had my way it would be the ONLY tax. Income tax is just the tip of the iceberg in the menagerie of taxation in this country. Much like your GST we can't seem to do anything in this country without being effected by tax.

Here's wiki's US Income Tax  Rate Table

Marginal Tax Rate[9][10][11] Single Married Filing Jointly or Qualified Widow(er) Married Filing Separately Head of Household
10% $0 – $8,925 $0 – $17,850 $0 – $8,925 $0 – $12,750
15% $8,926 – $36,250 $17,851 – $72,500 $8,926 – $36,250 $12,751 – $48,600
25% $36,251 – $87,850 $72,501 – $146,400 $36,251 – $73,200 $48,601 – $125,450
28% $87,851 – $183,250 $146,401 – $223,050 $73,201 – $111,525 $125,451 – $203,150
33% $183,251 – $398,350 $223,051 – $398,350 $111,526 – $199,175 $203,151 – $398,350
35% $398,351 – $400,000 $398,351 – $450,000 $199,176 – $225,000 $398,351 – $425,000
39.6% $400,001+ $450,001+ $225,001+ $425,001+

This taxation method is designed to squeeze the middle income who can barely afford it, destroy small businesses who employ the most, barely touch the rich, and give to the poor. I'd rather the governemnt spend less, let charities take care of the poor, tax middle income and small business less so they can save and invest while maybe taxing the rich a bit more, but not a lot more. The rich already pay the most.



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dsgrue3 on 04 April 2013
Michael-5 said:
dsgrue3 said:

I don't understand why anyone is PRO-Tax anything. Just boggles the mind. Yeah, let's raise food prices for everyone because some people can't stop shoving pie into their mouths!

It's like I've said before: personal responsibility. IF you want to avoid the salt, fat, you can.

So why not make a tax on high salt products, force people to make their products less salty (say a hamburger) to avoid this tax, and then we can let people add salt if they want to? Wouldn't this make sense? Why should people be forced to make an effort to avoid salt/fat when it makes more sense to have people make an effort to eat salty/fatty foods instead?

Also I'm not proposing we tax all fatty/salty foods, just the more salty/fatty foods. Like I said before, if you tax chips with 15% or more fat content per 50g serving, there will still be a lot of chip brands avoiding the tax, and it's not hard for doritos to make a low fat version of their chips for the same price. This wouldn't affect peoples wallets at all, that is, unless they specifically want to eat high fat and high salt foods, and don't want to make it themselves.

Producers pass cost onto consumers. If it costs them 15% more to make the product, it will cost 15% more to us.

No reason for me to pay more for ice cream because of the irresponsibility of the morbidly obese.



Augen on 04 April 2013
snyps said:
Michael-5 said:

This is completly false. A Big Mac Combo is about $7 and that barely feeds 1 person for 1 day. I live off $20 a week for food (I cook a lot), and I can tell you that you can feed a person for about $2 a day no problem. Eating healthy is cheaper then eating crap.


I feed my self AND  my gf for $30 a week and we eat better than a 5 star restaurant.  Everything from scratch.  Pancakes n stuff in the morning,  pizza from scratch, gas grilling, roasting, deep frying, I make my own ice cream!  The stuff I make is not enumurable.  But here's the kicker.  It doesnt take time or hardwork, it takes brains.  I can whip up the most amazing food faster than a trip through the drive through.  Ppl that think they have to read labels need to start reading the recipes on the web. Am I right?

Tone is hard to portray on internet so let me say I am being dead serious here.  I want to emulate this, I cook myself and $30 would be amazing goal for me and my fiancee to eat on.  Right now we vary between $40-60 depending on sales.  So, what are you eating?  How do you cut costs?



kain_kusanagi on 04 April 2013
Augen said:
snyps said:
Michael-5 said:

This is completly false. A Big Mac Combo is about $7 and that barely feeds 1 person for 1 day. I live off $20 a week for food (I cook a lot), and I can tell you that you can feed a person for about $2 a day no problem. Eating healthy is cheaper then eating crap.


I feed my self AND  my gf for $30 a week and we eat better than a 5 star restaurant.  Everything from scratch.  Pancakes n stuff in the morning,  pizza from scratch, gas grilling, roasting, deep frying, I make my own ice cream!  The stuff I make is not enumurable.  But here's the kicker.  It doesnt take time or hardwork, it takes brains.  I can whip up the most amazing food faster than a trip through the drive through.  Ppl that think they have to read labels need to start reading the recipes on the web. Am I right?

Tone is hard to portray on internet so let me say I am being dead serious here.  I want to emulate this, I cook myself and $30 would be amazing goal for me and my fiancee to eat on.  Right now we vary between $40-60 depending on sales.  So, what are you eating?  How do you cut costs?

You can usualy get a 5lb sake of flour for less than $4. Yeast is cheap too. That's a lot of bread, pizza crust, etc.

If you want to save money on food all you have to do is buy the basic ingredients and cook/bake yourself.



NintendoPie on 04 April 2013
BaldrSkies said:
People can make their own decisions about what to eat, they don't need the government to step in and babysit them.

You could've ended the thread right here and it would have been perfect.



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famousringo on 04 April 2013
dsgrue3 said:

I don't understand why anyone is PRO-Tax anything. Just boggles the mind. 


Besides the fact that the state is better positioned to provide certain services to society and those services need funding, taxes are a useful tool for pricing in externalities: Costs of producing or consuming certain goods which are not reflected in the market price.

Examples of externalities include things like pollution, bacteria which are increasingly resistant to antibiotics, depletion of common resources, and the long-term health impact of certain activities.

Ideally, you can measure the financial cost of such externalities, divide that cost by the units of a good responsible for them, and apply a tax that perfectly balances those costs. Reality, of course, is harder than that.

You know how a common complaint of the financial industry post-bailouts is that the rewards are privatized while the costs are socialized? A well-implemented tax can be a way to de-socialize the cost. Instead of the cost for a problem being shared by all, the cost is born by the manufacturers or consumers of the good which creates it. 



"The worst part about these reviews is they are [subjective]--and their scores often depend on how drunk you got the media at a Street Fighter event."  — Mona Hamilton, Capcom Senior VP of Marketing
*Image indefinitely borrowed from BrainBoxLtd without his consent.

dsgrue3 on 04 April 2013
famousringo said:
dsgrue3 said:

I don't understand why anyone is PRO-Tax anything. Just boggles the mind. 


Besides the fact that the state is better positioned to provide certain services to society and those services need funding, taxes are a useful tool for pricing in externalities: Costs of producing or consuming certain goods which are not reflected in the market price.

Examples of externalities include things like pollution, bacteria which are increasingly resistant to antibiotics, depletion of common resources, and the long-term health impact of certain activities.

Ideally, you can measure the financial cost of such externalities, divide that cost by the units of a good responsible for them, and apply a tax that perfectly balances those costs. Reality, of course, is harder than that.

You know how a common complaint of the financial industry post-bailouts is that the rewards are privatized while the costs are socialized? A well-implemented tax can be a way to de-socialize the cost. Instead of the cost for a problem being shared by all, the cost is born by the manufacturers or consumers of the good which creates it. 

Thanks for this englightening, off-topic reply. None of this is relatable to a food tax unless you're advocating that there's a reason a government should be interfering in one's consumption of food?

If I want to eat nothing but Snickers, that's my prerogative. 



famousringo on 04 April 2013
dsgrue3 said:
famousringo said:
dsgrue3 said:

I don't understand why anyone is PRO-Tax anything. Just boggles the mind. 


Besides the fact that the state is better positioned to provide certain services to society and those services need funding, taxes are a useful tool for pricing in externalities: Costs of producing or consuming certain goods which are not reflected in the market price.

Examples of externalities include things like pollution, bacteria which are increasingly resistant to antibiotics, depletion of common resources, and the long-term health impact of certain activities.

Ideally, you can measure the financial cost of such externalities, divide that cost by the units of a good responsible for them, and apply a tax that perfectly balances those costs. Reality, of course, is harder than that.

You know how a common complaint of the financial industry post-bailouts is that the rewards are privatized while the costs are socialized? A well-implemented tax can be a way to de-socialize the cost. Instead of the cost for a problem being shared by all, the cost is born by the manufacturers or consumers of the good which creates it. 

Thanks for this englightening, off-topic reply. None of this is relatable to a food tax unless you're advocating that there's a reason a government should be interfering in one's consumption of food?

If I want to eat nothing but Snickers, that's my prerogative. 


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.



"The worst part about these reviews is they are [subjective]--and their scores often depend on how drunk you got the media at a Street Fighter event."  — Mona Hamilton, Capcom Senior VP of Marketing
*Image indefinitely borrowed from BrainBoxLtd without his consent.

snyps on 04 April 2013
Augen said:
snyps said:
Michael-5 said:

This is completly false. A Big Mac Combo is about $7 and that barely feeds 1 person for 1 day. I live off $20 a week for food (I cook a lot), and I can tell you that you can feed a person for about $2 a day no problem. Eating healthy is cheaper then eating crap.


I feed my self AND  my gf for $30 a week and we eat better than a 5 star restaurant.  Everything from scratch.  Pancakes n stuff in the morning,  pizza from scratch, gas grilling, roasting, deep frying, I make my own ice cream!  The stuff I make is not enumurable.  But here's the kicker.  It doesnt take time or hardwork, it takes brains.  I can whip up the most amazing food faster than a trip through the drive through.  Ppl that think they have to read labels need to start reading the recipes on the web. Am I right?

Tone is hard to portray on internet so let me say I am being dead serious here.  I want to emulate this, I cook myself and $30 would be amazing goal for me and my fiancee to eat on.  Right now we vary between $40-60 depending on sales.  So, what are you eating?  How do you cut costs?

I eat all kinds of stuff: (please read 1st before looking at my bragging list).   I have an oven, stove, gas grill, cool daddy deep fryer,  kitchen aid stand mixer with ice cream attachment,  triple beam scale, and a bunch of little things I picked up like garlic press.  I started small with one book The William Sonoma Collection "Roasting".  I first made a meatloaf, then Cornish hens, then roast chicken... Etc.  the Roasting book is enough for someone to eat for an entire year with out getting bored.  It's very easy all you need is an oven.  Each meal will cost roughly $5 in ingredients, depending where you shop, and last a week for two ppl.  I then started the "breakfast" book, and so on.  It takes studying the recipe you want and moving over the hurdle of self doubt.  There's pictures of every meal so I flip to one that looks yummy and it will look difficult at first but the second glance will be like "oh that's actually not bad".  What else can I say, at first you start off with what you have but eventually you get more spices and tools as you go.  Now I use up everything perishable weekly and always keep oils, condiments, rice, pasta noodles, dry beans, sugar and flour fully stocked.  I shop at winco where i find non packaged products so i scoop however much i need in a baggie.  Each week I buy: a $1 fruit, a $1 vegetable,  $3/lb deli meat, $10 butcher meat, $3 milk, $3/lb cheese, $1 bread, and a $6 pack of red bull.  Every other week I buy:  garlic, onions, potatoes, sunflower seeds, and eggs.  So that's pretty much it.  Here is a list of everything I have every made.  I've been cooking for about 4 years now and I have way more recipes I still havent tried!
Roasted chicken with onions
Grilled barbque chicken w homemade sauce.
Fried chicken with herbs
Baked macaroni and cheese w crumb topping
Grilled chicken with herb rub
Grilled hamburgers
Babyback ribs with honey jalapeño marinade
 Grilled corn with chipotle butter
Herbed pizza with slices of mozzarella and tomato
Mashed potatoes
Pot stickers
Korean BBQ beef
Spring rolls
Tempura
Caramelized chicken with ginger
Steamed fish with green onions and ginger
Malaysian spicy fried rice with shrimp
Vietnemese grilled chicken
ancho beef chili
Cream of tomato soup
Buffalo chicken wings
Yankee baked beans
Coleslaw
Banana nut bread
White bread
Crumb topped blue berry muffins
Cheese and green onion omelet
Eggs Benedict
Waffles
Pancakes
German apple pancake
Ginger pear pancake
Cherry cheese blitzes
Pasta rustica with chicken sausage and three cheeses
Chicken and shrimp paella
Tandoori style chicken
Spaghetti with chicken bolognese
Brined roast chicken with wine jus
Thai chicken with lemongrass, garlic, and chiles
Grilled chicken Cuban sandwiches
Baked ham with brown sugar, rum, and cayenne glaze
Standing rib roast with Yorkshire pudding
Brisket braised in red wine
Baked acorn squash 
Stuffed mushrooms
Eggnog
Berry fool
Brownies
Gingerbread
Birthday cake
Chocolate mouse
Double chocolate chip cookies
Pineapple upside-down cake
Pan roasted salmon fillets in mango juice
Striped bass with leeks and balsamic vinaigrette 
Leek and red pepper mini quiches
Moroccan style meatballs
Deviled eggs
Tomato and basil bruschetta
Tuna tartare on ruffles potato chips
Tiny rogue fort popovers
Thai guacamole 
Double chocolate ice cream
Coffee ice cream
Strawberry ice cream
Mint chocolate chip ice cream
Chocolate hazelnut gelato
Caramel ice cream
Chocolate fudge swirl ice cream
Spaghetti alla carbonara
Homemade tortilla chips
Chicken enchiladas with salsa roja
Fish tacos
Flautas with shredded chicken
Shrimp in chipotle sauce
Carnitas
Carne asada
Tomato sauce
Fettuccine Alfredo
Bolognese sauce
Penne alla vodka
Baked ziti with tomatoes and mozzarella
Potato gratin
Latkes
French fries
Mashed potato blintzes
German potato salad
Hash browns
Home fries with bell peppers and onions
Herb stuffing
Beef tenderloin with mushrooms ($$$)
Cornish hens Provençal
Chinese style duck
Eye of round sandwiches
Meatloaf
Pork tenderloin with glazed onions
Ham with orange glaze
Rack of lamb with mint sauce ($$$)
Jumbo shrimp with spicy avocado sauce
Asparagus with prosciutto
Risotto with mushrooms
Risotto with spinach
Risotto with beets
Risotto with chicken and caramelized onion
Balsamic risotto with roasted chicken
Lentil soup
Three mushroom soup with sherry
Crab and asparagus soup
Butternut squash with roasted garlic purée
Herbed cucumber soup with toasted almonds
Gazpacho
Pan fried rainbow trout
Caesar salad
Potato salad
Five spice ginger tri tip with pineapple barbecue sauce
Pork ribs with pineapple hoisin glaze
Chicken fried steaks with cream gravy
Tuscan style roast loin of pork
Mushrooms stuffed with crab and almonds
Bacon wrapped dates
Onion rings
Gyros from ground chicken
Roast turkey
Baked ham with honey brandy glaze
Bread dressing with celery
Candied yams
Pecan pie



Kasz216 on 04 April 2013
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.


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.