Posted on 05/12/2009 2:35:48 AM PDT by PghBaldy
Senate leaders are considering new federal taxes on soda and other sugary drinks to help pay for an overhaul of the nation's health-care system.
The taxes would pay for only a fraction of the cost to expand health-insurance coverage to all Americans and would face strong opposition from the beverage industry. They also could spark a backlash from consumers who would have to pay several cents more for a soft drink.
On Tuesday, the Senate Finance Committee is set to hear proposals from about a dozen experts about how to pay for the comprehensive health-care overhaul that President Barack Obama wants to enact this year. Early estimates put the cost of the plan at around $1.2 trillion. The administration has so far only earmarked funds for about half of that amount.
The Center for Science in the Public Interest, a Washington-based watchdog group that pressures food companies to make healthier products, plans to propose a federal excise tax on soda, certain fruit drinks, energy drinks, sports drinks and ready-to-drink teas. It would not include most diet beverages. Excise taxes are levied on goods and manufacturers typically pass them on to consumers.
Senior staff members for some Democratic senators at the center of the effort to craft health-care legislation are weighing the idea behind closed doors, Senate aides said.
The Congressional Budget Office, which is providing lawmakers with cost estimates for each potential change in the health overhaul, included the option in a broad report on health-system financing in December. The office estimated that adding a tax of three cents per 12-ounce serving to these types of sweetened drinks would generate $24 billion over the next four years. So far, lawmakers have not indicated how big a tax they are considering.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Quit buying any sodas & kick their butts!
Why not just tax our couches since parking our fat tuckuses on them is harming our health?
I quit cigs in 1978 and just last week terminated my addiction to Diet Coke. So when the rest of the population gives them up and drives yet another set of businesses out of the country, they will finally get around to breathing. But they are working on that as well with the personal carbon emission tax. King George would be proud.
"Just put up a sign on the country, 'Closed-Owner Gone Nuts!'"
Washington is a place of lunatics, and Obama's coronation has finally given them permission to be their true selves.
Maybe when they start taxing sitting on your fat ass, watching TV and being sheeple, the voters will finally feel threatened enough to rise up and throw them all out.
Time to Push Back Until! We have to limit the amount of money we will allow Congress to spend. It is our money, not theirs.
When they talk about socialism in the abstract, the population gets behind them and say “Right On Brother!” And why not? Tax the anonymous “rich man” and give the money to ME!!!
But pretty soon the truth outs. There aren’t enough “rich men” to squeeze to get all they want.
So they come after “you and me”. Tax your gas, tax your electricity, tax your beer, cigs and sodas. Tax every nickel you earn, every nickel you save, every nickel you spend.
If the Stupid Party (that would be the R’s) has the brains and guts to remind the populus of these “populist issues” and start a steady drumbeat of reminders to the populus that OBAMA is the reason everything including the air you breathe is more expensive — it could go well for them.
Unfortunately, the (R)s are every bit as addicted to the peoples’ money as are the Rats. So I’m pessimistic it’ll ever happen.
I think we may have been separated at birth!
>> Maybe when they start taxing sitting on your fat ass, watching TV and being sheeple
heh... now there’s an idea. The BBC has mastered taxing television. Why not the ‘Rats?
I bet he’s chicken to increase the tax on alcohol.
I didn't know that.
The other day I borrowed a BBC doc from the public library, and it began with a glaring piece of accepted-wisdom malarkey. It reminded me of all the liberal twits I know who quote the Beeb like it's gospel.
[clueless on] Relax. This will only affect the 5% who make over $250,000/year. The rest of us won’t have out taxes raised a cent. Obama said so. [clueless off]
Out of control spending! The Sugar Tax affects minorities, woman and children most of all. Recalibrate those vending machines... pay for health care by using sugar, or ingest Acesulfame-K, Aspartame, Saccharin, Stevia, and Sucralose. Bring back Cyclamates.
OK so we now will nationalize Coke and Pepsi. Next target, Beef and pork...(You think I am KIDDING? The great Bacon Ban of 2010?)
It’s for the childrunz.
I think he did that at the same time he increased cigarette tax. It just didn't get as much coverage.
>> It reminded me of all the liberal twits I know who quote the Beeb like it’s gospel.
Yeah, we know a few of them too. Astonishing. The liberal venom of the BBC is impossible to disguise — it drips from essentially every faux news piece they do.
Check this out. It’s one of many (just google “british TV tax”):
http://www.turnoffyourtv.com/international/bbc.html
I drink regular soft drinks, about one daily. The day they pass such a tax, is the day I have bought my last one and will still with water, lemonaide, tea. And, sigh, I guess I’ll have to sell my stock in Pepsi...
Well....it’s about time something other than cigarettes was taxed! Cigarettes have been taxed to death to cover everything from sports arenas to SCHIP.
I’ve long said something like sugar or toilet paper should be taxed to pay for these things....the costs shouldn’t be saddled on just ONE consumer product...spread the burden.
>> pay for health care by using sugar, or ingest Acesulfame-K, Aspartame, Saccharin, Stevia, and Sucralose.
Don’t worry, it won’t be either/or. They’ll tax artificial sweeteners too! Bad for your kidneys you know. :-)
>> The rest of us won’t have out taxes raised a cent.
Bambi loves me, this I know
For Tim Geithner told me so
To “the rich” the bill belongs,
We are poor but they are strong!
Yes, Bambi loves me,
Yes, Bambi loves me.
Yes, Bambi loves me,
Tim Geithner told me so.
I thought cigarette taxes were going to take care of that jiffy...
Be prepared to sweeten your own lemonade and tea, or pay the Sugar Tax for pre-sweetened tea and lemonade. This tax proposal includes Gatorade as well.
$.03 tax per 12oz translates to more than $.15 per two-liter bottle.
How about stopping the idiots who go to the emergency rooms for a pin prick, hangover,head lice,..etc.
Sheesh! Home remedies for that.
I come from a long line of family members if you went to a doctor it was serious. If you went to a hospital,chances are , you die.
Great grandparents lived to in their 90s.
I disagree completely with the Rats’ plan, but I understand why they would tax something considered unhealthy and high calorie. They figure unhealthy and/or high calorie foods/beverages add more weight which may lead to obesity and problems associated with that. That in turn means the government will have to pay more for health care.
I use my TV for DVDs, it doesn't get any reception right now. I'd like the libs to try to tax me for its use--I'd dump the thing on the White House lawn.
LMAO!
Salt. Milk, Meat & Butter Tax to cover the fat.
You can eat oatmeal guilt free--but you'll pay dearly if you want it to taste different than cardboard.
Expect more new federal taxes on common retail items, and heavier taxation of existing ones --- tobacco taxes have already been raised, and you can expect gasoline to soon follow.
Hey! Don't 'squeeze' the Charmin!
Seriously, what Constitutional authority does the FedGov have to be doing the things they claim are the reason for levying these taxes, anyway?
That is the question, not "what should they tax?", but "Why in the heck is there a tax in the first place?"
>> I’d dump the [teevee] on the White House lawn.
I’ll join you. The only monitor I watch is my ‘puter screen.
But be sure to purchase and affix your “Electronics Disposal Tax Stamp” prior to dumping. :-)
THey’re going after fruit juices now too... sugar is sugar, they say.
>> How about stopping the idiots who go to the emergency rooms for a pin prick, hangover,head lice,..etc.
If you want to stop emergency room abuse, the first step is to learn to speak Spanish.
Doesn't work that way. Once they start down this path, there's no end to what they'll tax to change your behavior and "pay" for health care. Bullets hurt people - tax them. Cars injure people in accidents - tax them. Necks get contorted from working on computers all day and keyboards cause carpal tunnel problems - tax them. Fireplaces cause pollution and asthma - tax them. You're not walking your government-required 5 miles per day - special assessment tax for you, buddy, because your ilk is ruining the healthcare of the nation. Burning fossil fuels causes CO2 which hurts our health - tax fossil fuels. Oh, wait, they've got that one already covered.
This will be a pretense to lard higher and higher taxes on all of us, but it's "for our health" so it'll be ok.
>> You can eat oatmeal guilt free—but you’ll pay dearly if you want it to taste different than cardboard.
I bet yogurt will be okay, since it’s a “politically correct” food substance. Oprah and three quarters of the bimbos in Hollywood would have a cow if they taxed yogurt.
Government causes high blood pressure and strokes! TAX IT
(maybe I’m on to something, eh?)
Heaven help this country.
Why not just have everyone weighed on 15 April? Then tax all the fat people.
I haven’t drank soda in many years and I don’t smoke either.
Seems to me I've heard that before. Maybe there's hope...
The Sugar Act: Titled The American Revenue Act of 1764On April 5, 1764, Parliament passed a modified version of the Sugar and Molasses Act (1733), which was about to expire. Under the Molasses Act colonial merchants had been required to pay a tax of six pence per gallon on the importation of foreign molasses. But because of corruption, they mostly evaded the taxes and undercut the intention of the tax ... This act, and the Currency Act, set the stage for the revolt at the imposition of the Stamp Act.
Would there be a "break point," or just $.03 for each 12oz? So would my 52oz iced tea (sweetened with Splenda, BTW) cost me an extra $.15? I typically get 2 of these a day, which is a pretty nice profit margin for Quik Trip. And I'll often pick up something else while I'm there as well. But knowing that I'm paying an extra tax on it will make me less likely to continue buying it there, instead brewing it myself, which will wind up hurting Quik Trip, as well as generating no dollars for the federal, state, or local governments. So, in effect, that tax will wind up costing EVERYONE (except me) money.
As long as there's "stuff," congress will always be able to figure out a new tax on that "stuff."
Mark
Good.
I’m sick of soda drinkers turning the office into a sticky mess with their little splashes and spills. And don’t get me started on “Coke Breath”. Sometimes I go home at night smelling like a bottling plant. It’s disgusting.
The women do those feminine little whisper burps, which are bad, but the men! Well they belch like the rest of us enjoy it as much as they do!
Then there’s the residue. Can pyramids are the worst. Running a close second are those styrofoam cups leaving sticky little rings on desks and conference tables that those soda drinkers can’t bother to wipe up when they leave.
I don’t drink sugared sodas, but I know many people who do. People I thought were fine, Christian, conservative people. Give the a Dr. Pepper, though, and they turn into filth purveyors.
Tax ‘em high!
I quit smoking 9 months ago and I drink diet Coke. Raising tobacco taxes to their current levels is outrageous. Taxing sugared drinks is too.
Everything was going great with the new tobacco tax until you weenies quit smoking !
Do your patriotic duty and light em up !! (it`s for the children )
Now Lord Obama has to find another new tax.
how about a huge tax on designer sneakers ?
I doubt that but a tax on chicken wouldn't directly affect me because I don't eat the vile stuff.
But yes, the Brits actually have an annual TV tax on the device itself.
Mark
the version I heard was
“in America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power...then.. you get the women...”
They are attacking the wrong end of the problem, if gov didn't have their nose in health care to begin with, no new taxes would be needed.
Well, why stop at sodas? I mean, there’s a whole universe of products that are BAD FOR US......just ask the food police.
Let’s start with transfats, saturated fats, nutrasweet, red meat, white meat, meat, meat, meat, cheese, anything that tastes good, and BUTTER........how could I forget my beloved BUTTER?
These f-ing Communists have gone too far this time. Maybe the sheople will wake-up?
Fast food will be the next target. They are going to have to cast a wide net to pay for this. Women, children, and minorities will be hit harder by this, not that Zero gives a rats patoot.
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