Sin Taxes and Other Government Regulation on Unhealthy Products

[MadocComadrin]

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.

I never said that it was the solution to obesity, rather simply something that needs to be done. The solution to obesity will always be education.

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.

Aye, but there's a difference between taxing things that only harm yourself, and taxing things that harm yourself and other people. Alcohol can lead to an intoxicated state that can lead you to damage other people or their property and cigarettes have second-hand smoke. I'm not in favor of taxing junk food, but to say it's outright unconstitutional is a little too rash.

 

[Sir Saladin]

Being brave includes smelling the smoke of burning leaves and potentially getting killed by a car. We should put punitive taxes on all owners of motor vehicles because they are too dangerous and produce deadly toxins that are worse then the sweet smell of burning leaves if you want to be really safe.

 

[MadocComadrin]

Being brave includes smelling the smoke of burning leaves and potentially getting killed by a car. We should put punitive taxes on all owners of motor vehicles because they are too dangerous and produce deadly toxins that are worse then the sweet smell of burning leaves if you want to be really safe.

And there are leave-burning ordinances and vehicle regulations that deal with these sort of things to make sure that people both involved and uninvolved stay safe. It's not about people being brave, it's about other people not being stupid.

 

[Sir Saladin]

But people are still driving cars and trucks and flying aeroplanes, it's not working! hahaha. People aren't that easy to control all the time though, when it becomes illegal or overtaxed it makes gangsters rich which is something to consider along with people becoming criminals just because they are human instead of something more then human like a fanatic.

 

[MadocComadrin]

And there are regulations making sure that these vehicles are as safe as possible. You're skewing the argument of safety versus liberty with the argument of necessity versus liability. We allow airplanes and cars because we need them to keep up with our levels of production and fast-paced society. Compared to that, cigarettes and junk food aren't really that necessary.

 

[Sir Saladin]

The vehicles cause death and should be abolished. I'm just goofing around now MadocComadrin, but nobody seems to ever be at fault for anything they do unless they crash and kill someone (usually a whole family or at least a married couple while the lone loser drunk walks away unscathed) with a car. Guns have a mind of their own and cause people to commit murder, music causes murder, people are helpless against these forces of evil. I have also noticed that people are willing to admit that they are bad at doing things except driving, everyone thinks that they are excellent drivers no matter how bad they are at it, it is weird.

 

[mor2]

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.

Yes, but positive incentive can be absorb just as easily. The reason i prefer in the negative ones, is because i dont want to pay for it. (not because i believe it will do any good)

If anything i am much more inclined toward removal of fast food machines from schools.

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.

Another way to think about this is that we all need to pay for their medical bills.a

 

[MadocComadrin]

Yes, but positive incentive can be absorb just as easily. The reason i prefer in the negative ones, is because i dont want to pay for it. (not because i believe it will do any good)

Not pay for it? How so? Are you saying you 100% never buy junk food? And even so, with a positive incentive on the producer, you would be paying less for your food.