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NY Bill Proposes Fat Tax On Games, DVDs, Junk Food
Posted by
timothy
on Thu May 14, 2009 12:57 PM
from the this-government-is-delicious-really-delicious dept.
from the this-government-is-delicious-really-delicious dept.
eldavojohn writes "GamePolitics is writing about a proposal to tax things that make your kids fat. The logic from its author: 'Almost all experts agree that the primary reasons [for the obesity epidemic] are increased consumption of larger quantities of high calorie foods, snacks and sugar sweetened beverages... and lack of physical activity as vigorous play is replaced by sedentary activities such as watching more television, movies and videos and playing video games. This bill would raise revenues from modest surcharges on the very food products and sedentary activities that are linked to the lifestyle changes involved in the explosion of childhood obesity in the last 20-30 years.' Not as explicit as Japan's fat tax but we're getting there."
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Idle: Japan Imposes "Fine On Fat" 1271 comments
An anonymous reader writes "A recently-introduced law in Japan requires all businesses to have mandatory obesity checks (video link) for all their employees and employees' family members over the age of 40, CNN reports. If the employee or family member is deemed obese, and does not lose the extra fat soon, their employer faces large fines. The legislated upper limit for the waistline is 33.5" for men, and 35.5" for women. Should America adopt universal health insurance, could we live to see the same kind of individual health regulations imposed on us by the government? By comparison, the average waistline in America in 2005 was 39 inches for men, 37 inches for women."
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Money Grab (Score:5, Insightful)
But it's not going to make anybody skinny. Just make hordes of cash under a cause that everyone would support. This is a money grab.
Re:Money Grab (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Money Grab (Score:5, Interesting)
Minnesotans still pays more per person and I'd bet we get a lot more from our money than you do.
Parent
Re:Money Grab (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Money Grab (Score:4, Insightful)
Well they can tax the luxury goods, or they can raise the state sales tax, it's really up to you.
What it comes down to, is they need the money to make their budget. If this is what they choose to tax, it's a lot better than what they could tax.
Lowering spending is another option, but that's never all that popular in New York, or at least it wasn't when I lived there.
Parent
Re:Money Grab (Score:5, Funny)
Hey, what kind of bandwidth do you get in your militia bunker? Mine sucks, but it's probably because I shot the cable guy because he looked like CIA.
Parent
Re:Money Grab (Score:5, Interesting)
This tax, especially on foods and drinks that can kill you if not used in extreme moderation (apparently they aren't) is for the same reasons, no?
So, look, if you're gonna bitch about these (and I'm sure new creative behavior modification taxes in the future), then complain in general about using any tax to try to modify behavior. They should not use the threat of tax to promote good or curb 'bad' behaviors if you are an adult.
What do you bet that in a future in the US, if you have a national medical system, with computerized national records, that can easily be tied to other systems out there that collect info on you (like with grocery store purchases? Drug stores? Liquor stores?) that you are charged and taxed based on your health risk behaviors? Don't think they'll do it?
Did you think they'd ever even consider taxing you a 'sin' tax for buying a soda pop??? Me neither...
Parent
Re:Money Grab (Score:5, Insightful)
They justifiy the 'sin' taxes, especially on cigarettes...because of the health risks, and hope it is an incentive to quit.
Am I the only one that notices that 'sin' taxes designed, ostensibly, as a deterent are counter productive. For example:
1. Tax Cigaretts to pay for Medicare/Medcaid
2. People cut back on cigarette purchases
3. Revinue goes down from 'sin' taxes
4. Budget shortfalls lead to further increases in 'sin' taxes
5. Rinse and repeat until consuption rate drops to the point where 'sin' taxes are incapable of generating sufficent revenue to feed the Governments need for more spending.
6. Find new 'sin' (in this case obesity).
7. Rinse and repeat all over again.
The problem with the 'sin' taxes, or the 'fat' tax is that it's used more to generate money and prevent spending cuts, than to actually improve anyones health. If the government does end up decreasing the undesirable consumption (tobacco, alcohol, gasoline, sweets, video games, movies, etc.), they end up running out of money to fund their pet projects. If these kinds of taxes were actually designed to do what they claim, then there would be mechanisms included to decrease funding of the relevant programs as consumption goes down.
It's all Nanny State BS, wrapped up in the guise of the Public Good. I'm going to become a parent in August, and I'll do what my parents did. Once our children get to the age where this kind of sedentary activity is a concern, I'll kick them outside when it's nice, and not let them back into the house until meal time. I'll keep high calorie foods as a treat of last resort, and limit TV, video games, etc. to an hour or two a night.
If you feel like you need the government to make sweets and video games more expensive to prevent you from giving them to your kids in excessive ammounts, please do the rest of us a favor. DON'T BREED. If you already have, please drop your kids off at the nearest adoption agency and go get yourself a tubal ligation/vasectomy. YOU are the parent. Act like it. Tell you child "NO", and then stick to your guns. Let them throw temper tantrums, they'll cry themselves out eventually. I know that I always did. If you dont' have the patience, then take them home and whip their ass. That worked just as well in my experience.
Parent
Re:Money Grab (Score:5, Insightful)
No. If certain fast food is that bad for the kids, make it illegal to market or sell it to minors.
Fast food isn't bad or good for the kids. Fast food consumed without moderation is the problem. A quarter pounder with cheese (500 calories), large fries (500 calories) and large soda (300 calories) adds up to 1,300 calories.
That's quite a lot for a single meal but not really a big deal in the grand scheme of things, provided that you adjust your caloric intake accordingly. There's no reason to charge me more for fast food simply because the rest of the country doesn't know what moderation means or how to exercise it.
Parent
Re:Money Grab (Score:5, Insightful)
Once again, the government thinking they know what's best for us... morons.
And one more thing... a very important thing. This has NOTHING to do with getting people off their lazy asses and losing weight. It's just another way for the government to tax us. More money for them to piss away on stupid programs that do nothing and political agendas. You want more money..? Cut programs that are failing. There are plenty of them.
Parent
Re:Money Grab (Score:5, Insightful)
Cheap food is made with cheap crap, therefore is consumed by the poor (the worlds most populous group). They all buy it because it is cheaper than eating healthy. When you're struggling to make ends meet the last thing you're thinking is "is this healthy?", you're probably thinking more along the lines of "will this feed my kids for the next week?"
Parent
Re:Money Grab (Score:5, Insightful)
Not entirely true.
While it's true that it's easier to get good quality ingredients and healthier pre-packaged foods if you have the money for it, what causes obesity isn't so much the lower quality of food available for the money, but the choices people make on what to spend their money on.
For instance, yes, a hamburger in a real restaurant is better, healthier, and more expensive than a hamburger at McDonald's. But you can buy raw hamburger and cook it at home, and make it tastier, healthier, and far cheaper than you can get at McDonald's.
The boxed Macaroni and Cheese you get at Whole Foods is indeed better for you than Kraft, but costs three times as much. Less than half the price of Kraft, though, is buying the ingredients and making it yourself. Better tasting, cheaper, and less fattening.
Vegetables at your average farmers market cost about half of what they do in a grocery store, and are fresher and better tasting.
I could go on. Yes, the rich will always have more options than the poor. But with a little bit of research, effort, and practice, people can eat far healthier for even less money than the average American is doing now.
Parent
Re:Money Grab (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Money Grab (Score:5, Insightful)
Surely that's not the comparison.
The lean meat cuts are significantly more expensive than the 30% fat mince. Pasta is cheaper than vegetables. Soda is cheaper than juice.
Parent
Re:Money Grab (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course, most of the food I eat is cooked from scratch, and we grow our own vegetables, so eating healthy is fairly cheap, but it takes a LOT of time, time that most 2-worker households don't have.
Parent
Re:Money Grab (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not a money grab - I would totally support this.
I'm tired of my taxes paying the health care bills of these fat bastards. They eat crap, get overweight, next thing they are in for knee surgeries and lifelong diabetes management.
Well, how about this then. Make FAT PEOPLE pay the fat tax. Why should I pay for someone else's laziness and bad eating habits?
Parent
Re:Money Grab (Score:5, Funny)
And I say, let them eat cake.
Parent
Re:Money Grab (Score:5, Informative)
I don't applaud the effort.
Let's tax loan officers instead because their industry causes great financial harm to the country.
Don't agree? Maybe that's because neither of these makes a lot of sense.
Parent
Welcome to a tax on everything (Score:5, Insightful)
People want free health care, people want free this, that, and the other thing.
and they will find enough people who will feel it is OK to tax X because said people don't like X. The problem is that group will get whacked by people who don't like Y.
A VAT by any other name.
The stuff has to be paid for. The fastest way to keep people dependent on the government and keep people poor is to make it easy to be dependent and poor.
I know people who would cheer those gamers being taxed, I have vegan friends who would have a parade for fatties to pay more tax...
it never ends... too many people take enjoyment by having others punished. Most get bent when it occurs because of "religious" reasons but honestly does it matter when it comes down to it?
Democracies always have problems when people finally figure out they can vote themselves other peoples money, its worse when elected officials realize it works to keep them in office. Its even worse when a sitting President uses the bully pulpit to stomp on contract law and intimidate lawful holders of guaranteed debt to give it up.
Parent
Re:Money Grab (Score:5, Insightful)
I play instead of eating so i'm skinny.
So why would they tax me.
They should tax only fat people, damnit.
Parent
Re:Money Grab (Score:4, Insightful)
And then, aside from the food question, there's the question of whether it's in the best interest of government to discourage mental activity and learning (in the form of games) on the dubious assumption that the alternative that people will choose will be healthier.
Parent
Re:Money Grab (Score:5, Insightful)
Those "additional costs" are an article of faith, and not the proven thing most people seem to assume.
When studies have been done, it's turned out that people who live unhealthy lifestyles generally cost a society less overall because they tend to actually die of their health problems. The tofu-eaters, on the other hand, live longer, and accrue more costs.
Paying lung cancer care for a smoker who lives 12 months after his diagnosis is cheap compared to paying medicare, social security, and eventual hospital costs for someone who lives much longer.
Parent
Totally bogus... (Score:5, Insightful)
People with office jobs should have to pay this tax. They sit on their ass all day. Why should a construction worker, a whorehouse picker, or any other manual labour have to support office workers' sedentary lifestyle?
Re:Totally bogus... (Score:5, Funny)
They prefer the term "Concierge".
Parent
tax break for celery (Score:4, Funny)
Re:tax break for celery (Score:5, Funny)
No. Because celery is pretty neutral. Tax breaks will be available for products that actively help make you thinner, such as crystal meth etc
Parent
Re:tax break for celery (Score:5, Funny)
That's why you smother it in peanut butter, which comes from the ground.
DOUBLE HEALTHY!
Parent
Will the money be spent fighting fat? (Score:5, Funny)
What's next, Wii subsidies?
How about (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:How about (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Also a tax on Health care premiums (Score:5, Informative)
Got a letter from my company's health insurance yesterday.
"Health care premiums will increase as a direct result of the State Legislature approving the Governor's proposed increases in taxes, fees and assessments on your health benefits on February 4, as part of his Deficit Reduction Plan."
So they're taxing both ends.
Re:Also a tax on Health care premiums (Score:4, Informative)
The answer is to jump ship for another insurer with lower premiums. Oh, they're all raising rates? That's the joy of oligopoly.
Note: at a previous employer, I was able to negotiate a higher salary in exchange for not receiving medical benefits. I self-insured, and made out pretty well (my total cost was around 60% of the company's premium, but they paid me 75% of their premiums over base pay -- so we both saved money, even after employment taxes on the salary difference). My current employer offers nothing of the sort, so they're stuck paying high rates.
Parent
While we are at it... (Score:4, Insightful)
How short sighted (Score:5, Insightful)
backwards (Score:5, Insightful)
How about lowing (or even removing) taxesd on things that are likely to help keep you fit. Sporting equip, health foods, etc.
Oh thats right the greedy fucks don't get any money from that.
I still say they should get rid of HFC Syrup (Score:5, Interesting)
I mean, there HAVE been studies that show the obesity levels began rising at the same time that High Fructose Corn Syrup started to infiltrate all of our foods.
I mean do they REALLY need to add HFCS to Tomato Sauces, Soups, etc. ?
The best thing lately has been the return to sugar as a sweetener. Pepsi Throwback is one great example (its much less sweet than regular pepsi - and I'm a Coke drinker primarily).
Re:I still say they should get rid of HFC Syrup (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:I still say they should get rid of HFC Syrup (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Better Idea (Score:5, Interesting)
Tax your gasoline to a similar degree as in Europe. That would encourage less car journeys, more walking/cycling and act as a buffer for when the oil prices start increasing again so your gas prices won't double practically overnight again.
Re:Better Idea (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
I fully support this Fat tax (Score:5, Insightful)
The government has gone so far out to control our lives with taxes on things people disapprove of it isn't funny.
It will only get better once the government has gone so far out of whack that it micromanages every aspect of our lives. Only then will there be enough pushback
The time will come... (Score:5, Funny)
How about taxing corn instead of sugar? (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem that's unique to the US is that government corn subsidies makes corn cheaper than anything else. So manufacturers use high fructose corn syrup instead of sugar as sweetener.
HFCS is not only a sugar substitute, it also gets put into things that wouldn't otherwise be sweetened if you had to pay the full cost of sugar to sweeten it.
How about the US government stop subsidising corn?
Funny this should come out... (Score:4, Funny)
Judging by a large portion of the people I work with, and the cruft found between their keyboards when they whine their keys aren't working correctly, I'd say the study is spot on.
doesn't seem very principled (Score:4, Insightful)
If you're against sedentary activities in general, the list is surely much longer than videogames and DVDs. How about, say, books? Or televisions? Or board games?
Absurd - Every Bit Of It. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not a nutritionist, nor play one on TV, but I can make the argument that one can of Coke every day does *not* make a person overweight, while eating too much broccoli *will*.
The point: this is not about nutrition or health, but rather, about the government finding *any excuse it can* to extract more and more money from the pockets of it's citizenry... while at the same time imposing more and more of it's will on them.
A day will come... sooner than the busybody pointy-head academics, power hungry Congressional thugs, and greedy special-interest lobbyists think... when those of us peasants who continuously get ravaged by out of control lawmakers, have finally had enough... and we begin reaching for our pitchforks.
Tax marijuana instead (Score:5, Funny)
2) Regulate and tax it
3) PROFIT!!!
There's not even a ??? step to worry about with this one.
What happened... (Score:4, Insightful)
Someone could argue that fat people cost more in medical expenses and because of this they cause the cost of medical procedures to rise. This may be true. However, if someone is over weight they have a higher chance of death via heart attack, or diabetes. Healthy people end up living longer, and costing more money. [blogher.com] So what is the problem with someone being fat? In the long run they cost less.
On the other hand could fit people also cause medical expenses to rise? Running is bad for your knees you could twist a knee or ankle in basketball or baseball. You could get a concussion in football or loose tooth in hockey.
So being both health or fat increase the cost of insurance and medical expenses on a whole, so why just target fat people? Is this just a political/social vendetta against over weight people?
Re:ass-backwards (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Have you noticed? (Score:4, Funny)
Kids don't play outside anymore. When I was a kid, my friends and I would go ride our bikes, go build a tree fort, play hide and seek, or play a million and one other games we made up on the spot. Sometimes we fell down, sometimes we got hurt, and once in a while we even learned something.
When I was a kid, me and my friends would work on the family farm or in a coal mine. Sometimes we fell down, sometimes we got hurt, and once in a while we even learned something.
Now get off my lawn!
Parent