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State Health Commissioner Richard Daines has taken to YouTube to educate New Yorkers on the virtues of Governor Paterson's proposed "obesity tax," which would add an 18-percent tax on non-diet soda and other sugary drinks containing less than 70 percent real fruit juice. Sure, the video's no Ottomoman-Humping Gangbang, but we are in a recession, so we'll excuse the lackluster production values.
Daines's point here -- illustrated with striking visual aids like cans of cola and buckets of sugar -- is that consumers' excessive soda consumption results in $6.1 billion a year in extra health care costs. For the average soda drinker, this also means 21,000 extra calories per year, which ends up as roughly six pounds of fat. Stay tuned to the 1:52 mark, when Daines drops a big chunk of simulated fat on the kitchen counter to prove his point. And near the end (spoiler alert!), Daines spreads out $100 cash money to show how much the people would save by cutting back on soda. Which also explains where the production budget went.
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i'm fine with the state punishing people dumb enough to drink carbonated high fructose corn syrup.
Did someone say "artificial sweetener lobbyist?"
Maybe the state should just stop paying for healthcare for obesity-related ailments. I'm sure hitting people in their wallets for doctors visits would be far more effective than taxing their soda in making them go on a diet. Then maybe the rest of us who drink regular soda and also get ourselves to the gym wouldn't have to pay idiotic taxes like this.
A few years ago I used to drink a two-liter bottle of caffeine free Coke every day. When I stopped doing that I lost 20 pounds in less than six months and went back to weighing what I did ten years earlier. That shit will kill you.
Reminds me of that stupid, slanted movie, Supersize Me. One segment had an extremely obese couple getting prepped for gastric bypass surgery. The man said that he drank several 2-liter bottles of soda every day. Well, duh! You think maybe it would be cheaper to just stop drinking that much sugar than to have surgery that costs several thousand dollars and may cause complications for the rest of your life?
Bullshit. If Paterson is so concerned about fighting obesity, why is he also taxing gym membership? The man doesn't give a rat's ass about anyone's weight problem.
Why does the government also encourage the poor to drink soda and other sugary, fatty junk by allowing food stamps to pay for all these?
What he leaves out (among other things)
Is that Diet soda is a cause in the increased rate of diabetes
Since NutraSweet (besides the fact that it is an unholy creation) is not real sugar - and yet it tricks the body to thinking it is real sugar. Hence when some then consumes real sugar after drinking diet soda the body starts to freak out.
Over time this can cause an onset of adult diabetes because your glycemic levels become all out of wack.
But thats okay
as long as a handful of people actually lose weight.
Thats all that matters.
This distinction between diet and non-diet soda is bullshit. Soda is bad for you. Period.
But overall I'm sick of the state playing nanny.
No doubt the dairy lobby in Albany is partly behind this.
In 2006, New York was #3 with $40,867,179in federal dairy subsidies. Some upstate assemblyman is quite proud of the $30 million dairy subsidy he came up with.
Why?
According to the New York State Department of Agriculture & Markets, "The dairy industry is the largest single segment of the State's agricultural industry." Why are our tax dollars going to prop this industry up?
This is yet another round of political bullshit. Instead of cutting back on unneeded things and not doing fiscally irresponsible things like wasting $4 million on needlessly renaming bridges just tax people and sugar coat it by saying it is an "obesity tax" yet nobody is dealing with the morbidly obese state government, just fattening it up.
If only I could make a video of this quality at home...
This is the beginning of behavior modification by taxation. Expect more of it.
www.forgotten-ny.com
I love how these Democrats don't even hide that they use taxation to shape your behavior any longer. The Democrats used to be at least claim the goal was revenue enhancement. Maybe people will see the light and throw out assholes like this next election.
This is just another ruse to dupe the taxpayers. Fuck Paterson and his agenda. We pay enough taxes. Eliminate the bloat in the government. Go after pensions-leave me the fuck alone already
Can you say "artificial sweetener lobbyist"?
why didn't he do the comparison with water.
NYS should be proud of it's water. Hannaford's has this machine that purifies municipal tap into 5 gal jugs.
Smash the state! (one can of soda at a time)
If this means that there will be fewer fat chicks on the street, I'm for it.
An 8oz glass of whole milk has 150 calories and 25% of your daily allowance of saturated fat.
Why did Patterson come up with 50 little taxes (music downloads?) instead of just hiking income taxes on the truly wealthy - and I'm not talking about people making $250,000 a year.
A gallon of milk costs more than a gallon of gas (even when gas was expensive) thanks to extortionate price controls. Do you know how much it would cost a family to provide four kids with that much milk on a daily basis? A freaking fortune! If NYState wants to wonder why poor people turn to sugary drinks, maybe it should examine why its own ag policy has turned milk into a luxury item affordable only to the upper middle class and wealthier.
Thank you! The meddling politicians of both parties create these unintended consequences then cover up their screw ups with taxes and more laws.
This pisses the shit out of me. /bissinger'd
Self responsibility. Effin a, man. A lot of things are bad for you, but as long as there's no deceptive practices why regulate it? Is ice cream next? It's pure fat and sugar. What about the overweight who drink iced coffees with cream and 4 scoops of sugar? Let's tax that, too!
How about this: We don't pay for anyone's healthcare, then the cost of someone who doesn't take care of themselves to the public is $0.
Instead we get these liberal economists and educators telling us we'll somehow save money or come out on top.
Nutrition is not rocket science. All it takes is the ability to feel and see. If you can touch, you can touch your flab in the hips and probably piece together that your current lifestyle is not healthy. If you can see, you can probably tell that the expanding belly as you scarf down another Big Mac and Coke is not good for you.
Stop the nannying. Stop the absurd taxes.