Quote:
Originally Posted by thebestauntie
While I agree educating people and trying to encourage folks to be healthier is a great idea, taxing things like sugary/fatty foods and drink is not the way to go about it. Higher taxes on things that are 'bad' for you has not proven to be a deterrent in any way (i.e. cigarettes).
Taxing the bad foods/drinks won't help with obesity, just like it hasn't helped with cigarette smoking. They may as well just call it the stupidity tax and leave it at that and forget about trying to call it something else.
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Actually, if you read the article, they
claim that the taxes put on cigarettes are the reason fewer people smoke. I'm pretty sure only a small handful of people stopped smoking because of the price hike. Most people I know who quit smoking rarely list, "I was sick of paying smokers tax" as one of their reasons. It's usually health related.
At the same token, though, most people likely wouldn't admit the added expense of sugary drinks made them stop drinking them and switch to diet. They would likely list a health reason. I don't know.
Anyway, I agree with you, LA. It's an interesting concept and all but it just seems bizarre. However, the article states that all the money collected via the tax will be used for health education programs which really wouldn't be so bad. Whether or not that's actually true is debatable.