Sin Taxes and Other Government Regulation on Unhealthy Products

[Phonemelter]

@Tibertus, If you eat pasta on daily basis, it's the same crap. I can assure you that replacing fast food with pasta, wont get those people absolution or make them loose weight.

I eat pasta six times a week, and it never gets old. Plus, pasta is more filling than fast food and can help curb obsessions to constantly be eating. It is a step in the right direction for the process.

.....they'll go for the cheapest and fastest solution.

If you are referring to fast food, you have it wrong; fast food is not as cost efficient as making your own meals.

 

[Blackfish]

mor2 does have a point there though, if you're eating pasta with just tomato sauce/paste then it's hardly nutritionally better than ketchup chips.

 

[AWdeV]

And nobody said they were doing that. Least of all me and it seems my meals caused his whining.

 

[Blackfish]

That's true.

 

[Anarion]

mor2 does have a point there though, if you're eating pasta with just tomato sauce/paste then it's hardly nutritionally better than ketchup chips.

Ketchup is full of salt and sugar. You may be surprised to learn that chips are fried.

There are other ways to cook pasta. Carbonara is delicious and very easy to make. A human could easily eat pasta every day and have a healthy diet. Not so much with fast food.

 

[Blackfish]

mor2 does have a point there though, if you're eating pasta with just tomato sauce/paste then it's hardly nutritionally better than ketchup chips.

Ketchup is full of salt and sugar. You may be surprised to learn that chips are fried.

There are other ways to cook pasta. Carbonara is delicious and very easy to make. A human could easily eat pasta every day and have a healthy diet. Not so much with fast food.

To be clear, I'm not suggesting that spaghetti with tomato paste is the only way to cook pasta. I am also aware that adding other ingredients will make pasta both more nutritious and delicious. It's kinda besides the point I was making though. Which is that pasta with tomato paste only isn't all that healthy and balanced compared to what we usually call junk food.

Though I guess you have a point that chips in general would probably be more oily.

This thread is making me crave pasta. And potato chips.

 

[mor2]

I eat pasta six times a week, and it never gets old. Plus, pasta is more filling than fast food and can help curb obsessions to constantly be eating. It is a step in the right direction for the process.

I never said pasta all week long is unhealthy, for that matter i bet you can get a decent meal in a fast food restaurant if you order a salad and some of their newer healthier line ups.
Just as i dont consider a burger, apple pie or souffle chocolate unhealthy. its a all about moderation, how make it, what you put in it and how much of it you eat.

So my point was that even thou there are many cheap, fast and healthy solutions instead of the fast/junk food, it matters not. because unless the people want to change their life style, regulating unhealthy products wont do it for them
for example water is much cheaper and healthier solution than any soda, but do you really think that banning soda will make them drink water? (also you cannot whip a pasta out of your bag like a potato chips)

 

[Wolfhead]

隐藏

So, it's kinda old news, but we were recently discussing the ethical repercussions of the government not allowing people to buy soda and other junk food with food stamps. It's already impossible to buy alcohol and cigarettes with food stamps, and soda and junk foods don't offer any real nutritional value, so are just as much for recreational use as alcohol. Likewise, they can be seen as just as bad for people since a large part of Americans' calorie intake is contributed just to soda. With rising healthcare costs being attributed to obesity, is it right to try and limit people who are using government funded food stamps from buying junk food? Also, is it right to place a sin tax on the same products to try and offset costs?

I of course am all for the government slapping a good chunk of tax on sodas, chips and the like. I'm also in favor of limiting food stamp use to actual food. Food stamps are meant to make sure families don't starve, they aren't meant for buying your kids sugary treats and junky snacks in lieu of a meal. Also, with how many people purchase sodas and junk food, I think a sales tax placed on those products could be well used in the national budget.

Of course, the majority of my class is against any action like this for reasons such as: It marginalizes the poor and it places burden on corporations which provide lots of jobs for Americans.

Of course, you guys could always cut the military budget just a lil' bit. But hey, I'm not a citizen of freedomland. Not my place to say, really.

 

[Tibertus]

The military budget is smaller than each of the budgets for medicare and social security. Besides, this isn't a thread about budget woes, it's about unhealthy food and regulation on it.

 

[Phonemelter]

I never said pasta all week long is unhealthy, for that matter i bet you can get a decent meal in a fast food restaurant if you order a salad and some of their newer healthier line ups.

"Healthier" you mean. While a lot of what they promote as healthy is better than the regular stuff, it is still poorly done and again, not as cost effective for the nutrients and amount given.

 

[MadocComadrin]

The point of government food stamps is to assist the poor in keeping themselves well nourished; it only makes sense that foods that aren't going to contribute to people being well nourished shouldn't be covered by food stamps. Stated otherwise, it's not the governments job to please your palette, rather it's to keep you alive.

As for taxing these foods for regular spenders, I'd say no. I'm not a fan of negative incentives. I'd rather see a tax break or other incentives for producers of healthier foods (especially those made in America). Then, supply will go up and prices will go down until demand shifts to make up for it.

 

[bgfan]

I agree with Madoc, however I'm not a fan of giving out these tax breaks. With an economy like ours we should be ditching the tax breaks and bailouts (Remember the Great Depression; the bailouts actually did more damage to the economy) and start jacking taxes up in order to get us out of this economic slump. A revamp of the well-fare system wouldn't hurt either, get those who don't actually need it off.

 

[MadocComadrin]

Government spending is only a band-aid for a recession--while it does get you out of it quicker, you still have to face the debt later on. We should be focusing on things that increase our investment area as well as our education and technology components. (eg. Stop educating as many foreigners who simply take their education back to their home country as well as increase the number of engineers we're cranking out.)

I agree with the welfare part. There are too many druggies using it to just score more drugs, and too many people wearing designer jeans and iPhones using food stamps at the supermarket.

 

[Archonsod]

A human could easily eat pasta every day and have a healthy diet. Not so much with fast food.

Actually you can with fast food too. By the same token, you could eat pasta every meal and die of scurvy. Like I said way back when, nutrition has to be balanced across a diet, not on a per meal basis. Whether any given food which is not inherently toxic can be considered healthy or unhealthy depends entirely on the rest of your diet.
In fact in some cases fast food can be healthier than it's non-fast alternative thanks to cost cutting measures. McDonald's fries for example are around 50% reconstituted cornmeal rather than potato, thus being somewhat less fattening than an equivalent amount of oven chips (though far more salty).

As for taxing these foods for regular spenders, I'd say no. I'm not a fan of negative incentives.

It's not a negative incentive, it's a correction. Junk food should be a luxury item whereas stuff like bread should be a staple. In an ideal world, it should cost more to acquire chocolate than bread. In actuality, because bread is a staple it's price increases as it's a guaranteed sell, whereas as chocolate is a luxury it's price decreases in order to sell. The result is the two end up switched, I can buy 150g of chocolate for around two thirds the price of a 100g loaf of bread. Despite the chocolate actually being more expensive to produce.

 

[mor2]

As for taxing these foods for regular spenders, I'd say no. I'm not a fan of negative incentives. I'd rather see a tax break or other incentives for producers of healthier foods (especially those made in America). Then, supply will go up and prices will go down until demand shifts to make up for it.

I doubt that few cents incentives will make a difference in their dietary habits. It will only lower prices for everyone else who already eat healthy and since our problem is over consumption of unhealthy products, I think that the best way to target that group is exactly by that "negative incentives" tax, so if they want to indulge in their unhealthy habits, that leads to obesity and to **** load of medical problems, they are going to pay the extra to finance it. (instead me paying twice for it).

 

[DameGreyWulf]

If I
give you money to buy a cat
and you buy a dog
then I could kick your ass and you'd have no room to *****
because I gave you money to buy a cat
not a god damned dog.

 

[Phonemelter]

If I
give you money to buy a cat
and you buy a dog
then I could kick your ass and you'd have no room to *****

No room to ***** even though they had room for a *****, eh?

 

[MadocComadrin]

I doubt that few cents incentives will make a difference in their dietary habits. It will only lower prices for everyone else who already eat healthy and since our problem is over consumption of unhealthy products, I think that the best way to target that group is exactly by that "negative incentives" tax, so if they want to indulge in their unhealthy habits, that leads to obesity and to **** load of medical problems, they are going to pay the extra to finance it. (instead me paying twice for it).

The incentive is not for the consumer, but rather the producer. Likewise, taxing the consumer of junk food would be quite full of red-tape, so instead they would tax the producer. Luckily for these producers, they can absorb the tax without notice from the consumers by raising prices of less popular goods or spread the increase to their non-junk-food divisions (thus minimizing the tax) to make up for profit loss.

In the US, healthier things are usually more expensive. I notice it a lot, especially as a college student. Couple that with the price of food going up (partly due to the price of gas going up), and people are going to buy the cheaper things. What needs to be done is to get the prices of healthier food lower instead of lowering the spending power of the consumer with a tax.

 

[Archonsod]

since our problem is over consumption of unhealthy products

Your problem is overconsumption. It doesn't matter what you're eating, providing it gives you more calories than you can burn you're going to get fat. It's why

What needs to be done is to get the prices of healthier food lower instead of lowering the spending power of the consumer with a tax.

won't work, since you'd just end up with people stuffing themselves on salads instead. In fact there's a distinct risk it would exacerbate the problem, most people make the same mistake of assuming because a food is labelled as "healthy" overconsumption is perfectly fine. thus tend to overeat to a greater degree on the perceived health food.

 

[Sir Saladin]

It was written in the Constitution of the United states that punishing people you don't like with taxes is unconstitutional, I think making special taxes for people who do things to themselves that you don't agree with qualifies as unconstitutional. The whole idea of freedom is that you are willing to give up a lot of safety for the right to live the way you want to, that's why it used to be the land of the free and the home of the brave not the land of the safe and the home of the sissies. It never ends, booze was outlawed even though that was unconstitutional and they enforced the hell out of it wasting a lot of money just like the Hundred Years War on Drugs but once people stop doing these bad things then food becomes deadly and against The Holy Church of You Must Obey the Doctor Priests in order to Live Forever because everyone needs living forever as their highest priority at all times. Eventually the only legal food will be oatmeal and we will be strip searched twice a day for our own good. The inventer of corn flakes only ate corn flakes, he thought he would live forever too.


Addendum: I'm not a fat man I just felt the need to defend people's freedom to get as fat as they want.