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Soda was a hot topic yesterday, as Governor Paterson spoke at a gathering of health officials and soda-tax advocates in Albany, while former president Bill Clinton bragged in Harlem about how his foundation has helped pressure soft drink companies to slash shipments of full-sugar soft drinks to schools by 95 percent compared with 2004. "There's been a dramatic shift toward lower calorie and more nutritious beverages in schools," Clinton told reporters. But when asked if he supported a proposed New York state tax on sugary beverages, Clinton declined to comment, saying: "It's dumb for me to get involved in (the tax) debate when I can save God knows how many kids lives by making other agreements."
Meanwhile, the scaremongering was in full swing up in Albany. Deputy Majority Leader Jeff Klein (D-Bronx) vowed to kill the governor's proposal, which would increase the cost of sugar-sweetened beverages by an average of 17% and reduce consumption by 15%, was dead in the water. "I think it has to be," Klein told the Daily News, "Anything that is going to cause us to lose jobs in this devastating economy has to be considered a nonstarter." And Sen. Martin Golden (R-Brooklyn) declared, "Ladies and gentlemen, today it's soda and juice, tomorrow it's lettuce and tomato. Do you know how much sugar is in a grape or a banana? They are not going to stop there."
But assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver said the proposal is still being considered: "The question is whether people will be taxed for things that are clearly legal ... [a] product sold in supermarkets. If we deal with sugar, we might as well deal with the whole gamut of sugar." And Paterson admitted that even he is not immune from soda seduction: "I might even sneak a soda now, but the First Lady has banned them from the mansion... We're trying to take dangerous substances out of the hands of children, and we would have equated that, years ago, with firecrackers or something like that.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the planet, they're enjoying soda and booze in a can in Japan. It's called Cola Shock, and the commercial is just as daffy as you might hope a Japanese ad with fat Americans ordering "burger!" "pizza!" and "Cola Shock" would be. Watch:
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RETARDED! Legalize marijuana!
Weed Power! Marijuana will help us deal with this recession.
Someone really needs to teach Golden a thing or two about the food pyramid. F'ing moron.
Let's tax LIES!
show us the proper way to live government. tax us into submission because we have been naughty, naughty little children.
Oh God save us from ourselves by taking our money!
Time to crack open that case of Boylan's Black Cherry I've been saving up.
This whole taxing soda to help prevent childhood obesity claim is absurd. They want to tax it because they know people will keep buying it. Nobody creates a tax unless they think it's going to raise money. God forbid they spend time attempting to slim down the bloated government instead of strong arming the hard working public.
I'm disappointed (though not surprised) at the fearmongering being done to oppose this. There's clearly a line here and bottles of liquefied sugar are an outlier in our diets.
I myself am on the fence about the tax itself, but you can't seriously argue that a banana or tomato is a threat to public health.
You are disappointed at the fearmongering, while most of us are upset at the demagoguery.
No one, especially someone who is already overweight, is looking at the extra 6 cents per bottle of soda saying to themselves "I gotta cut down." That's absurd. No doctor is going to say that obesity is caused EXCLUSIVELY by soda consumption either. That's absurd.
Here is the main problem:
1 Gallon of Orange Juice - $9 (expires in 3 months)
1 Gallon of Milk - $5 (expires in 2 weeks)
1 Gallon of Soda - $4 (1 year life)
----and just for fun:
1 Gallon of Gasoline - $3
Most of the people who are okay with this tax are middle to upper class people with the type of salaries that can sustain buying fresh milk and juices (or, as mentioned in this thread, fancy boutique sodas that qualify for the tax.) These same people can afford gyms or home gyms. They can eat real food at restaurants that have offerings from all of the food groups rather than subsisting on "dollar menu" items from fast food restaurants.
So ultimately, lower income families are going to shoulder this tax almost exclusively. These families have kids in public schools where physical education has been cut and where the school breakfast and lunch is the equivalent of a TV dinner (pizza, fish sticks, meatloaf and the like) so a tax like this almost seems deliberately mean-spirited.
"Let them drink juice" is the new "Let them eat cake."
Gallon of tap water: $0
Diet sodas cost the same, if the "lower income families" need their sweet fix.
And that's exactly the problem. Everyone sitting up on a pedestal deciding what the poorer masses should consume.
You have no idea if their pipes are good enough that the water doesn't have a bad taste. You have no idea if they even like the taste of plain water. You have no idea if they can deal with the taste of diet soda versus regular soda.
You just feel they should "suck it up." And this is why people in this thread are getting so upset. Because a priviledged few could really care less about the people who this tax will effect.
Want a healthier populace? Keep state and city parks open, instead of all the proposed closings. Make Physical Education mandatory for each school day grades K-12.
Then you may not need "sin" taxes like this.
AMEN! Stop cutting back on healthy things for once! People who want to pay MORE taxes are complete fucking idiots.
Does this include "diet" soda's?
They are going to tax my Diet Coke!? Basturds.
This potential law is so dumb it seems like something imported from California.
Vegetable rights and peace !!
And you hate peace? wow
http://www.healthpolicy.ucla.edu/pubs/Publication.aspx?pubID=375#download
Using interviews with 43,000 adults and 4,000 adolescents statewide, the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research analyzed the correlation between soft drink consumption and weight.
It found that adults who drink at least one soda or sugar-sweetened energy drink a day are 27 percent more likely to be overweight or obese. For children, the risk of obesity soars 60 percent with each daily serving of soda or sugary beverage.
"While we know that this epidemic is here, we need to know specifically and scientifically where the epidemic is coming from," said Harold Goldstein, executive director for the California Center for Public Health Advocacy, which commissioned the study.
"For me, the most powerful finding is the link between sugary drinks and obesity," he said. "I have nothing whatsoever against the industry itself, but I have a problem with those products.
Repeat after me: correlation != causation
Mr Shankly's got the right of it. Kill the sugar and corn syrup subsidies, end the stupid nonsense of subsidizing on one end and taxing the finished product. It's like the exact opposite of a value-added tax.
"I can save God knows how many kids lives by making other agreements."
What are is he talking about?! Soda is not KILLING children.
This BS linking of drinking soda and saving lives is absurd and manipulative. people are fat for a multitude of reasons, none of which are going to be changed by adding a tax on soda. I seriously cant believe how dumb people are.
I think you might be surprised the detriment to health sugar soda (especially with caffeine) is to children. The same for the population at large. The sheer bulk of calories in an otherwise nutritionally devoid beverage is enough of a concern to warrant disincentives, ignoring the effects of massive amounts of sugar in ones diet.
a bunch of things
this isnt a tax on caffine, its a tax on bottled drinks whether they have caffiene or not. its a tax on 'soda whether it has calories or not.
but I'll play along.
you say caffeine is bad? please cite some sources. I can just as many that show it has positive effects. I can also point to the 10K year history of people consuming caffiene in tea, coffee, mate and what not with no adverse effects.
Next, calories just are energy, they is no difference in the calories in soda than the calories in tofu. its just energy from different sources. if you loaf around all day and consume more calories than you need whether from soda or salad, you will get fat.
the people ranting against soda think the same way as the people who believe in intellegent design over evolution. you are coming up with rationalization to support your opinion, prejudices and trying to coach it in 'science'.
its the difference btwn following the mob and thinking critically.
All calories are not equal. There is a marked difference in the way the body metabolizes the calories from high-fructose corn syrup (the sweetener used in almost all sodas and sports drinks) vs. glucose-based calories. The body cannot convert these HFCS calories into anything but fat, so those disgusting subway ads that show a can of soda pouring out liquid fat are actually correct.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-mercola/sugar-may-be-bad-but-this_b_463655.html
Did you know that the NUMBER ONE SOURCE OF CALORIES in America comes from soda? That's a depressing fact. America is getting fatter and fatter, and soda (HFCS) is only exacerbating things.
Caffeine is a stimulant, would any sensible parent send their kids to school with a thermos of coffee?
Kids shouldn't drink caffeinated sodas at all.
sugar is not the point. it is not up to the government to enforce healthful choices of the populace via the tax code. period.
The mayor was on the news talking about how we need this tax to protect children who are too young to make good choices about consuming soda. uh... if they aren't smart enough to make good choices about diet, why do we think they will make good choices as consumers?
Kids like junk food, and better parenting, not a 17% higher price, is the answer. This tax is just about raising revenue, and the way to convince the sheep to support more taxes is to demonize the product.
better parenting doesn't work because some people shouldn't even have children. This is what consumer for consumer freedoms is putting on their commercials. Leave it to the parents but that is basically not addressing the issue. Also these Soda Lobbyist have all the money to post these misleading ads and who will educate these parents?? this tax on soda can be used to inform the public to make better choices.
The Center for Consumer Freedom casts itself as a public interest organization with a libertarian commitment to consumer choice, but to those it attacks, it is a classic corporate front group. The list of organizations and agencies targeted by the CCF is a long and honorable one, and includes Mothers Against Drunk Driving, the Center for Science in the Public Interest, the American Public Health Association, the Harvard School of Public Health, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
You still can buy Sodas but it is not a basic need for anyone's diet. All the corn Syrup in soda is bad for children who are way too FAT. They can't even go up the stairs. No jobs will be lose but different jobs will be created. Jobs for healthier drinks. These senators don't give a damn about your freedoms but about the money from these corporate lobbyists.
if the senators cared about our freedom then why no ethics reforms and/or term limits?
felix the robot,
youre ripping off other sites again:
http://www.hsus.org/center_for_consumer_freedom.html
dude, why are you following me all over this site? stop it now Valierob. wacko
youre a robot. evidently your programmer forgot to tell you to not repeat posts or to not copy from other sites, at laest without citing them...lest you be hit with a copyright violation! oh boy oh boy!
and stop pretending to be a guy.
Get some professional help. You aren't bothering me by following me all over this site and cross-referencing all my comments. You just seem real insecure and desperate now. but in all fairness to others on this site, why don't you post relevant comments instead of commenting on whether my comments are repeated or cited. You're not even a lawyer if you can't understand copyrights don't apply to comments posted on blogs. Lastly, I am a guy and if you want then you can come and suck my d**K . I am quite sure you want to. nite valeriob oh i mean youngpro.
i'll stop when you stop with the valierob bullshit. and i want evidence as to why you even think that s/n is mine.
also, if i remember and understand correctly, NO ONE pays attention to you because:
a) you rarely if ever know what you're talking about
b) you copy and paste utter bullshit unrelated to anything as a comment
c) the copying and pasting leads to comments from other users asking for further clarification
d) flipflop on your stance on meat, and would like to see 'vegetable rights'
e) put animals above humans, even hate humans who would take a bullet for their pet just because that human got their pet from a breeder
and my favorite:
f) 1 dog from breeder in your Manhattan 2-bedroom = BAD; 37 cats from a shelter in your Manhattan studio = GOOD VERY GOOD, PLEASE OFFER ME SAINTHOOD
you can see why youre an easy target, lady.
i dont understand why you continue thinking i'm valierob. do you have proof or evidence as to why? i'm puzzled...
This is so silly: let's just tax sugar itself. It makes more sense. Realistically, if a kid has managed to become obese SOLELY because of sugar (because, it can't be the calories in treats doing it...), let's tax the parents who let that happen.
Let's also remove the red tape. I hate gym 6th grade through 12th. Why? I hated having to change, line up in my spot to get counted, walk in a circle for three laps, only to change again and go on with my day. Remove the 'required wear' and make kids actually exercise. Get a brain and stop scheduling kids for lunch right before their gym period.
Or you know...give them a Metrocard so they can get to the school miles upon miles away since all the local high schools are being closed.
The idea that a tax on sugary beverages is going to drive stores out of business is ridiculous. Yeah, everyone is just going to STOP BUYING THINGS. Nobody will switch to drinks without sugar, and nobody is going to pay the tax to buy what they want, commerce is just going to stop. Riiiiiight.
Simple, don't buy soda. Or if you love it and need it like crack then pay the tax. It's not that hard. We're talking about soda. People are acting like fiends right now.
no, we're not merely talking about soda. this issue is about the ethics of sumptuary law/sin taxes and the role a government's tax code should play in the personal consumptive choices of the populace.
I hope the state doesn't decide to tax Twinkies.
They wont. Twinkies is the foundation upon which the food pyramid is built.
How about taxing heroin, crack, cocaine, and weed? Also Viagra.
I saw a "mother" give her baby a bottle last weekend that was full of Red No. 40 Kool-Aid. We should tax stupid people who bear children into oblivion.
I think you just said we should tax "stupid"
Tax the breeding. With each new child comes a new tax. BTW, in case you can't tell, my statements are a *little* tongue in cheek.
There is a breeding tax. In fact, the only real taxes that still exist are breeding taxes. The state just waits a little while before applying most of it. And to make it easier on you, they tax your kids directly when they start to produce income. See how that works? They are very kind.
I have a better idea. Kill the subsidies that make corn (and all the junk food it ends up in) cheaper than its real cost.
Why that would be too simple! And don't you realize that it's our patriotic duty to give subsidies to the Farmers of America - all 12 that remain? (that soda lobby can't compare to the corn industry lobby).
So you have government subsidies on one end to make corn syrup cheaper - and proposed government taxes on the other end to dissuade people from buying cheap (corn syrup laced) soda. Who wins? Folks who are employed by the government to grant subsidies and solicit taxes. But that's not you and I.
Fuck the nanny state.