Confed999

I allways come off as the angry type, I allmost never am though.

__________________
No man is free until all men are free - John Hossack
I agree completely with this Administration’s goal of a regime change in Iraq-John Kerry
even if that enforcement is mostly at the hands of the United States, a right we retain even if the Security Council fails to act-John Kerry
He may even miscalculate and slide these weapons off to terrorist groups to invite them to be a surrogate to use them against the United States. It’s the miscalculation that poses the greatest threat-John Kerry

Shek

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make them drink.

__________________
"So little pains do the vulgar take in the investigation of truth, accepting readily the first story that comes to hand." Thucydides 1.20.3

Gun Grape

Bulgaroctonus, your "Little bit of discrimination" need more research. 2 examples you might want to look into is the roots of the current day antismoking campaign. What has become a public distain for smoking and an all out ban in public facilities started out in the airline industries. Look where "Lets make a section where cigar smokers can enjoy a stogie without offending anyone. A smokers section on airplanes" has become business owners no longer have a right allow smoking in their private establishment.

You might want to look at the effect of the "Luxury Tax" on boat builders before you decide to institute a fat tax.

Your plan to tax/regulate "Bad" foods. First name a bad food. I will bet any that you can think of I probably eat on a daily/weekly basis. Tweekies, cake , pasta and nothing beats a warm honeybun and a cup of coffee. Will I be hit with a "Sin tax"?

If so, Why? FYI, I'm 40 something, 5'11", 155lbs and can still run a first class Marine Corps Physical Fitness test. 20 dead hang pullups, 100 situps and a 22 min 3 mile run. (Bad knees, multiable operations). Do I get taxed because some undisciplined F#ck is too short for his weight and cannot or will not police his self?
No thanks

And what will you do to motivate that bottom 50% that pays no taxes? Another Child tax credit that takes money I earned away from me and my children so some welfare/unskilled labored can get something back at the end of the year.
I'll pass

Gun Grape

Now for the original problems, Global warming, caused by us burning carbon based fuel. And Fat people.

Solution, lets burn fat people.

barrowaj

The issue with smoking is that someone who is smoking is infringing on another's clean air. It makes sense for the government to regulate smoking in establishments open to the public, after all, we have health regulations for such private enterprises. Private regulation of smoking just wouln't work. Its a CATCH-22 for a private owner to ban smoking in his bar, because while the nonsmoking majority would appreciate it, he would certainly loose the smoker minority. Since many nonsmokers hang out in groups with smokers, these groups of mostly nonsmokers would still be less likely to go to nonsmoking bars because of their smoker friends.

I would just tax foods that are unhealthy and high in saturated and trans fat. You can clearly eat those foods and be healthy, you just can't eat them all the time. That's why a tax wouldn't be a big deal for someone who eats them infrequently, but for someone who frequently eats unhealthy foods, the tax could lead them to consider healthier alternatives.

But what you don't realize is that you do pay for those people. You pay in terms of lost productivity from medical problems, which leads to a higher cost of goods and services. You also pay in terms of increased healthcare costs, ie higher medical insurance costs, and of course Medicare/Medicaid expenses.

The small tax that you would pay for eating your twinkies and honey buns would be greatly outweighed by the economic benefits of reducing obesity. A google search tells me the estimated annual cost of obesity is $75 billion dollars. Now that doesn't pale in comparison to the Iraq war, but its a big chunk of change. If we can do something about it by raising a tax on obesity inducing factors and encouraging exercise, then we can discourage obesity and help pay for its effects at the same time.

Anon

Truly you are a social elitist of the first order Barrow.

Which of course is a nice way of saying that you're the enemy of free loving peoples everywhere.

Parihaka

the simple genius of this astounds me what's more it exactly fits Bulgars professed lack of morality

Bulgaroctonus

I am astounded at all the resistance this idea of tax relief or FDA action has generated. Gentlemen, for now I cannot answer all of your points. For me to truly justify my position, it would take many posts and much time. Time I don't have. I don't like to bow out of an argument, but I guess the sheer volume of points i have to answer has forced me to.

Consider the tax and FDA idea dormant, but not dead. It will only be resuscitated over the weekend, when I don't have five hours of homework to do.

All of my opponents, you may celebrate for now. Bulgaroctonus temporarily resigns.

Praxus

I think it would be better if you made a single post, stating your position, and the reason why you believe it. Let it stand on it's own merits. Don't try to respond to thousands of rebuttals, it almost never works out well, even if you are right.

Bulgaroctonus

I'll do that eventually.

Shek

I'm not against using taxation to influence behavior. I'm not part of the taxes = tyranny crowd. However, I think of a practical way to tax away habits that contribute to obesity without creating huge inefficiencies in the economy. You can tax certain foods, but then your targeting grocery stores, and typically, it seems that your processed foods that contribute to obesity tend to be your cheaper foods, and so you'll run into hunger issues and families being able to put food on the table. If you do a general food tax, it'll be passed on to consumers, so restaurants generally won't change their portion sizes. Plus, food demand is for the most part inelastic - you have to eat to survive, so even the better designed taxes probably won't have a huge impact. So, from a theoretical perspective, it's a dicey proposition.

Even if you could design a taxation strategy to target obesity, all you'll be doing is increasing bureaucracy to enforce the legislation, and the endstate is that bureaucracy exists to justify itself, and so we'll end up with more inefficient government employees on the rolls. So, in the end, I don't think it's a practical alternative, tyranny aside.

Confed999

That cannot happen in a "private" establishment.
It's not the tax that's a big deal, at least to me. It's why it's being placed.
So you want to skip the middle man and charge us all needlessly, on top of all that? Super...
I do not believe taxes = tyranny either...

Parihaka

I do. Just a necessary tyranny.

barrowaj

That's good advice, and something I've only gradually learned.

barrowaj

I don't really understand what you mean...?