What New Yorkers think about the soda tax

can of cokeThe Q Poll reports that among New York voters it recently surveyed, 60 percent opposed the proposed soda tax. A few other interesting bits:

+ Opposition varied a bit by political identification: 54 percent of Democrats opposed the tax, 59 percent of independents and 72 percent of Republicans.

+ People who said they prefer diet soda opposed the tax 58 - 39 percent.

+ Independents were the most likely to say they preferred diet soda (37 percent)

+ Respondents supported raising taxes on alcohol 67 - 32 percent, and on cigarettes 73 - 26 percent.

photo: Flickr user Tom Coates

Comments

We've had this tax before, as what was then called the Beverage Container Tax. It only applied to carbonated beverages, and did not discriminate between what was used as a sweetener. Of course, your super-sized fast food servings escaped taxation, which now doesn't make sense if the rationalization is that this is somehow fighting obesity. There was also a wholesale tax on beer. These were cut in 1995 (I think the beer tax went down in steps).

I think this is a great idea. It worked for Cigarettes, and it will work for sugared beverages.

I also support a 1.00 tax for gasoline, implemented now. It would still cost less than it did 6 months ago, plus, we'd have lots of money going to the government, instead of lining the pockets of oil executives.

We have to get the state money somehow, why not make a good social impact at the same time. I know the conservatives would rather have us increase fees at SUNY so people have to work for Wal-Mart instead of getting an education. Or we could cut taxes - That always seems to solve our problems.

As long as they don't touch my coffee I'll be OK with it! The truth is that I've been concerned about the enormous sizes that these products come in for a while now. Not to sound like an old fart, but when I was a kid in the 70s the standard size for bottles and cans was eight to twelve ounces, not the twenty or more ounce standard size now. A medium fast food drink today used to be a large. There is also a lot of controversy over whether the cheap high fructose corn syrup is processed differently by the liver and brain than the sugar cane or beet based sucrose, such that you don't know when you've had enough and you can continue consuming well past a reasonably healthy level.

This is a slippery slope. When will it end? When the politicians and the special interests have given every product their own "special" tax.

By all statistics, obese parents are likely to have obese children. And, obesity correlates strongly with social class. ‘Authoritarian Eugenics’ can be effectively implemented through tax policy.

Further, New York City dwellers are mostly stuck riding the subway and/or walking crowded streets with the obese -even people of great means are stuck.

Governor Paterson will put an end to the cycle of obesity!

[ Sounds pretty ugly to me. => Crack a history book. ]


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