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.
