Randi Rhodes Forums

From the much-talked-about Institute of Medicine panel on obesity:

(Snip)The IOM panel included members from academia, government, and the private sector. It scrutinized some 800 programs and interventions to identify those that can significantly reduce the incidence of obesity within 10 years.

"There has been a tendency to look for a single solution, like putting a big tax on soda or banning marketing (of unhealthy food) to children," panel chairman Dan Glickman, a senior fellow of the Bipartisan Policy Center and a former secretary of th% Department of Agriculture, told Reuters. "What this report says is this is not a one-solution problem."

The panel identifies taxing sugar-sweetened beverages as a "potential action," noting that "their link to obesity is stronger than that observed for any other food or beverage."

A 2011 study estimated that a penny-per-ounce tax could reduce per capita consumption by 24 percent. As a Reuters report described last month, vigorous lobbying by the soda industry crushed recent efforts to impose such a tax in several states, including New York.

"I do not think in any way, shape or form that such punitive measures will change behaviors," said Rhona Applebaum, Coca-Cola Co.'s chief scientific and regulatory officer, in advance of the report. Anyone deterred by the tax from buying sweetened soda, she said, will replace those calories with something else.
http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSB ... 8?irpc=932

Sounds like industry and the medical professionals agree on a solution to me. Yes, tax soda and people can find the calories from something else. Win-win since ANYTHING else would be more like food and less like poison.

Sin tax soda and next thing to be sin taxed will be "Y Fenni" - Red Dragon Cheese.

That would be sad.

Taxing luxury item, whether they be harmful food or anything else simply changes the demographics of who will be allowed to be obese or contract cancer...and make the poor even poorer. Much as some may think it's okay for rich people to get sick, I cannot. Nor can I agree to making the poor finance whatever such a tax will be used for.

Call me a libertarian or an idiot, the only justifiable way to encourage social change is by making the economy of the poor better than it now is, not by penalizing them for wanting the same luxuries other people have.

I can see your point to a degree. But with good eating habits education and availability of healthier alternatives are advantages the wealthier already enjoy and which the poor do not. So in that context a fat tax on soda would seem a leveling of the playing field.

I saw somebody discussing this issue on ... was it Eliot Spitzer's show? Or one of the other Current ones? And I can't remember his name, at the moment.

But, his point definitely stuck with me. He was against sin taxes on soda or candy or junk food to make them more expensive. He said the better technique was not to use taxes to make "bad" food more expensive, but to find way to make healthy food more available and cheaper. Mostly by revisiting and revising our agricultural programs, supporting local farmer's markets, and a host of other initiatives.

That would be the win-win; not taking more out of poor peoples' pockets, and helping them to eat healthier.

Cheaper 'real' food would be the ideal. But I'm not satisfied that sin taxing sugury foods wouldn't be a means to that end. Place a high tax burden on sodas and the cheap knock-offs fall out of the market, leaving those producers scrambling to find different low-cost alternatives to fill that market with sweeteners like stevia and agave nectar. Sin tax does impact the consumer, but its impact on the producer and the potential for inspiring innovation to get around that could be a potent tool. If people stop buying the crap companies will find a way to recapture that market, ideally with something that is not so crappy.

The problem with sin taxes is, it doesn't stop poor people from buying the products, it simply leaves them with fewer resources to buy "the good stuff." At least with greater resources they have a chance of buying SOME good food along with all the junk.

Education and lowering the cost of wholesome products is a much fairer way...and I believe more effective. It also prevents government from becoming dependent on the revenue from stuff we shouldn't be consuming so much of in the first place. That's just asking for corruption, in the sense of people in power doing things to reduce the chance of fixing the problem.

My new minimal dance single "Sarah Loves Soda" is here!

Where have you been hiding LL? Good to see ya.

You should contact Dr. J at KBOO / Melting Pot, the weekly electronica show, to submit some of your work for air.

YOU STOLE MY LINE YOU B*TCH!

For the song (for those who give a rat's ass) here it is:

http://djeurobeat.podomatic.com/entry/2013-03-14T19_42_04-07_00

This is my 10th attempt ever at creating my own mini-album (free) and is
marked EXPLICIT! "Sarah Palin Loves Soda" is the last song on the album.

Songs:
"Tales Of Taboo 2013" (Karen Finley Vs. Lady Gaga ARTPOP)-/ "Death Of An Astronaut"-/ "Karel Discusses Vagina's and Rick Santorum"-/ "Floating Along The Russian River"-/ "Pound The Underground"-/ and "Sarah Palin Loves Soda"