There is a funny tv ad that perhaps you've seen, produced by the Americans Against Food Taxes, showing an indignant woman insisting that Washington not tax fruit juices and sodas. She says proponents of such taxes claim they are only "pennies," but then she goes on to say that those "pennies add up when you're trying to feed a family." The ad highlights the hard economic times we're in - driving from the grocery, this woman passes a forclosed home and a business that has just gone out of business.
Jon Steward mocked the ad by pointing out that the woman, having removed her groceries, doesn't close her trunk. Unfortunately, I'm not able to find this segment on the Daily Show website.
But this site has a good take on the ad. The so-called "chilly mom" in the ad is pinching pennies, "trying to feed a family". This guy's "...knee-jerk response to the chilly mom’s declaration that 'Pennies add up when you’re trying to feed a family,' was 'Well, don’t feed your family crap, then.'"
The point of taxes on fruit juices and sodas is to curb the consumption of these products, and to provide funds for health care. I would like to see similar taxes on other "junk foods", tobacco products, alcohol, hand guns (and ammunition), and surcharges on all moving traffic violations - with serious enforcment of traffic laws.
Andrew Weil, M.D. notes that unless we, as citizens, start actually caring for our health (health care), then none of the reforms now under discussion (which he favors) will significantly impact the rise in the cost of disease management (which he calls our current "health care" system). Taxes, as I suggested above, have been shown to curtail consumption of tobacco products, and I think would have the same result with these other unhealthy products, as well.
Another note on this ad. It is produced by one of these so-called "astro-turf" groups, sponsored by the food production and grocery industry. No surprise there. Maybe these industries could start producing and marketing healthy products.
At least the ad's "chilly mom" isn't driving an SUV!! I suppose that's progress!!
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Comments: 15
The website I linked above ("this site" in the third paragraph) offers a definition of the kinds of junk food that would be taxed.
i'D BE OUTRAGED IF tHE STATE IMPOSED SAKLS TAX ON A qUART OF ORANGE JUICE FOR MY FAMILY.
Since the 1990’s, virtually all non-diet soft drinks — including most popular fruit juices and sports drinks — have been sweetened with high–fructose corn syrup (HFCS). Corn sweeteners, primarily HFCS, have eclipsed regular sugar as the ingredient of choice for beverage and food manufacturers, with the exception of some few “micro-brewed” sodas.
...is different from...
Filtered water, concentrated orange juice, orange pulp
...for example.
I'D LIKE TO SEE THE WOTD "PRESERVATIVES" ELIMINATED FROM OUR FOOD PACKAGES, TOO. AN "SODIUM" (YEAHM LIKE THAT'S EVER GOING TO HAPPEN
P.S. Turn off your Caps lock!
That's why I think there should be a hefty tax. Taxes on tobacco products has "DONE.. ZIP" toward decreasing the number of youth, who begin using those products. If we are going to have taxes, inevitably something is going to be encouraged and something is going to be discouraged. There's no getting around that. We might as well discourage those things that make us sick, and encourage those things that are healthy.
Given that we don't live in an "enlightened" society, in which everyone knows and does the right thing, I think taxing destructive products is a better solution than banning them. I understand that is controversial, but I haven't seen a better suggestion for dealing with Dr. Weil's (correct) contention that unless we become less ill as a society, health care costs are going to rise, regardless of what "reforms" are enacted.
As I said above, given that we don't live in an "enlightened" society, in which everyone knows and does the right thing, I think taxing destructive products is a better solution than banning them. I understand that is controversial, but I haven't seen a better suggestion for dealing with Dr. Weil's (correct) contention that unless we become less ill as a society, health care costs are going to rise, regardless of what "reforms" are enacted.