Posted on 11/17/2014 9:50:50 AM PST by John David Powell
HOUSTON, Texas – If you guzzle a lot of soft drinks, you know, carbonated colas, well, you could be paying a little more for all that sugar.
And when you do, you can thank the gentle woman from Connecticut, Rosa Delauro.
Rep. Delauro (D-CT) is responsible for the “Sugar Sweetened Beverages Tax Act” or just the “Sweet Act” if you prefer the lite version.
She wants congress to put an extra tax on drinks that contain sugar or any other sweetener with calories.
It would be just a penny per teaspoon, but that could end up adding about 15 cents for every 20-ounce bottle of pop, and around 10-billion dollars into the pockets of Uncle Sam.
Do the math: at a penny a teaspoon, you would need 1 trillion teaspoons to come up with $10 billion.
And that would have Delauro doing a happy dance, because she wants to use the extra money for programs she says will cut the cost of diabetes, and dental problems related to sugar.
The money would also help reduce the costs connected to obesity that add about $190 billion a year to the nation’s healthcare bill, and that comes to about 600 bucks for every man, woman, and child in America.
Here’s something else to think about while drinking your next cold soda: Just how much is 1 trillion teaspoons of sugar, high-fructose corn syrup, or low-calorie sweetener?
Going back to the old blackboard, we find that a trillion teaspoons make about 130.2 million gallons of sweet stuff.
And if we had 130 million gallons of fuel, we could fill up about one-fourth of all registered vehicles in Harris County.
That’s not only a lot of sugar just from sweet drinks, it’s also some more food for thought.
Here in NYS, we’ve been taxing that stuff for years. One of the newest taxes, IIRC, is on bottled water. Of course, add the bottle “fee” to your bill. Gotta love NY!! NOT
Well, she has ignited the ire of both the Sugar Lobby and the Corn Lobby at the same time. This will not go anywhere.....................
These piecemeal taxes have nothing to do with health.
Anyone who permits a new tax on anything is out of their minds. On anything.
Period.
Uncle Sam does not need the money.
These assessments on Christmas Trees and stuff sure sound a lot like unconstitutional national sales taxes to me
This has zero chance of getting out of Congress now. If you drink that much soda where you would have to worry about this you’re most likely a fat ass. Sugar is about the worst. I’ve seen many people shed a LOT of weight just by cutting soda out of their diet.
An elitist tax. Notice she is not lobbying for a tax on creme brulee or fancy Starbucks drinks filled with syrup.
Just soda. What the poor typically drink for a treat. Cheap, tasty, refreshing.
I don’t drink sugar soda but twice a year, so I am not posting in “my own defense.” I find the attitude behind such propositions sickening. Yuppies can go to the food trucks and buy $8 organic custard ice creams and feel all holy about taxing the poor’s $1 soda pop.
So,if Delauro is proposing a tax on sugar-sweetened drinks,then am I to assume she is favorable towards the poisonous artificial sweeteners which are much worse?
Good grief. Neither sugar or artificial sweeteners are bad for you. But this tax is absolutely bad for everyone. Unless you support this particular tax as a legitimate way to make people healthier?
Assumes facts not in evidence.
I'd place my bets on "escaped harpy from Pandora's box", but I suppose that it could just as well be some other type of malevolent fiend...
Subsidizing the poor will ensure more poor, and taxing production stifles productivity. This is why the democrat economic schemes are backwards; they punish profit and reward parasites.
So I purpose a tax on laziness, liberalism and stupidity, and that we subsidize, in the form of lower taxes, productivity. This is paid dollar for dollar so every billion collected in the new tax is the reduction of taxes back to the producers. In essence, take from the leaches and give to the host in order to have more production and fewer leeches. Under this proposal, proposing taxing products that some do-gooder doesn't like would trigger both the stupidity tax and the liberal tax, resulting in subsidy to sugar growers and soft drink producers. Which in turn would allow the producers to hire more workers from the leech roles, who in turn would buy more soft drinks and smart phones increasing production in nearly every market segment except the government poverty pimping sector.
Rosa DeLauro needs to have an ugly tax if anyone seen her picture... she makes Ruth Buzzi look beautiful...
Baloney. I’ve been drinking aspartame sweetened drinks for years to no ill effects whatsoever.
How about we put a tax on UGLY...and Rosa DiLauro is one UGLY woman.
instead of a “sugar tax,
How about just stop subsidizing big Florida sugar?
We par big sugar about a dime subsidy for every pound they make all the while big sugar is polluting the hell out of Florida.
Why don’t they just stop subsidizing high fructose corn syrup?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
