Philly SHOCKED that new large soda tax is hurting consumers

[RINO Tom]

Drinking less of those unhealthy drinks isn't hurting them.

It is none of either of your business...

[RINO Tom]

Drinking less of those unhealthy drinks isn't hurting them.

It is none of either of your business...

It is when we have to pay for the added health cost. Internalize the externality.
Yes, that contradicts what I said earlier, but it's just upsetting about how regressive it is.

If we try to tax away fat or unhealthy people, I am of the opinion that we are tip toeing toward eugenic thought.

[RINO Tom]

Drinking less of those unhealthy drinks isn't hurting them.

It is none of either of your business...

It is when we have to pay for the added health cost. Internalize the externality.
Yes, that contradicts what I said earlier, but it's just upsetting about how regressive it is.

If we try to tax away fat or unhealthy people, I am of the opinion that we are tip toeing toward eugenic thought.

     I find it a little concerning that people are provided with benefits at taxpayer expense and those benefits are then used as an impetus to control consumption.

People will be provided with some kind of health benefit at someone else's expense unless you literally reject the maimed and dying at the emergency department door, though. Public health is a basic government function, and frequently that entails encouraging people to behave differently.

This is what I mean what I talked about this being a triggering discussion for so many people. RINO Tom is actually comparing the soda tax to eugenics!

I appreciate the point that dead0man is making. These policies are alienating, bureaucratic, and typically aimed at the poor and disempowered. Middle class behaviors associated with health risks rarely face the same kind of censure. And I don't actually like soda taxes that much, but in the midst of the politics and culture of the United States in 2016 I see few other compelling ideas for addressing these problems. Obesity will overtake tobacco as the leading cause of premature death in this country within the next decade, it disproportionately affects poor and black Americans, and soda is a major culprit.

So I can't help being enthusiastic about anything that reduces soda consumption. The tradeoff is worthwhile. I would prefer to live in a country in which slightly fewer children have rotten teeth, in which slightly fewer people die premature deaths due to cardiovascular disease, and in which fewer people live with diabetes. What are conservatives and libertarians offering as alternatives?

A tip toe is a small step, friend.  We are trying to use the government to weed out those we find undesirable (obviously not in the fashion of killing them or stopping them from breeding but rather by changing them to our liking), and our rationale is that they're costing us money?  Or, more accurately, that they could?  New tangent, but why don't we tax tanning beds, alcohol, motorcycles, unsafe cars, amusement parks or anything else that might result in injury or health problems?  You could make a perfectly *logical* argument for a tax on any of them.  This is where I have become a little more "socially conservative" in the last year, for lack of better term: I do believe there's a point where you just say, "alright guys, this is ridiculous and we aren't going to argue about it anymore; it's a societal norm."  I think being able to enjoy the type of soda you want should be viewed as something it's unbelievably weird and stupid to try to regulate, and it shouldn't even be argued.

[RINO Tom]

EDIT: ninja'd by RINO Tom of all people. Strange bedfellows, I suppose.

Yeah, I have to admit it kind of amusing to see one of Michael Bloomberg's biggest fans (i.e. one of the three people on this site that actually likes him) arguing against this.

LOL, I am NOT a fan of Bloomberg.  I am even less of a fan of people who hate him because he supports policies that "help the affluent" (and, in his mind, by extension everyone else), but I am not a nanny stater in any sense of the word.

[RINO Tom]

EDIT: ninja'd by RINO Tom of all people. Strange bedfellows, I suppose.

Yeah, I have to admit it kind of amusing to see one of Michael Bloomberg's biggest fans (i.e. one of the three people on this site that actually likes him) arguing against this.

LOL, I am NOT a fan of Bloomberg.  I am even less of a fan of people who hate him because he supports policies that "help the affluent" (and, in his mind, by extension everyone else), but I am not a nanny stater in any sense of the word.

Oh, I see. Maybe I mixed you up with somebody else? Maybe I was thinking of Computer/Old School Republican?

Hey, low blow.