Unlike cigarette taxes, where there is no benefit whatsoever from smoking and harm from even small amounts of cigarette smoke, sugar is, quite simply, energy for the body and, if taken in the right amounts, helpful to the body's proper functioning. A tax on fats is even more ridiculous, as the notion that "eating fat makes you fat" has been so thoroughly disproven as to be laughable. Fats, proteins and carbohydrates (i.e., sugars) are all needed for our bodies to properly function.
Oh, I don't know about this. Looking at the 10 leading causes of death in the Unites States, I'd say that half of them are linked to excessive intake of saturated fat. Some fats are essential (our brain is mostly fat!) while others are just harmful. I would also claim that we have no physiological need to ingest pure sugar. Not that it's necessary a bad thing, eating sugar. Just, you know, try to keep the amount reasonable.
If these substances are abused by some, that is their own problem. Of course, this is one reason why I have issues with the entire socialized medicine concept, because it gives the government reason to stick its nose into people's eating habits. That aside, however, the solution would seem to me to be a surtax on the obese.
Obesity is most definitely a public health issue. And it's staggering how prevalent it's predicted to become. It's like we're swimming in fat.
Sin taxes on fat and sugar. What do you think?
13/11/2012 09:19:33 AM
- 620 Views
Sure. Revenue's got to come from somewhere. But only after we end corn subsidies and the like. *NM*
13/11/2012 01:52:01 PM
- 205 Views
I think they are stupid ideas.
13/11/2012 02:11:14 PM
- 403 Views
Re: I think they are stupid ideas.
13/11/2012 03:28:59 PM
- 391 Views
Yeah you're right
13/11/2012 03:52:09 PM
- 366 Views
Yes, that is exactly what I meant
13/11/2012 03:59:00 PM
- 391 Views
I would recommend you read Good Calories, Bad Calories by Gary Taubes
14/11/2012 06:04:42 AM
- 430 Views
Palm oil? They want to tax shampoo?
13/11/2012 11:03:44 PM
- 341 Views
No, the tax is only for foodstuffs in which palm oil is an ingredient. I should've clarified that *NM*
14/11/2012 11:53:30 AM
- 187 Views
A palm oil tax is potentially a much more complex issue than you suggest
13/11/2012 11:12:24 PM
- 330 Views
Re: A palm oil tax is potentially a much more complex issue than you suggest
14/11/2012 05:25:15 PM
- 351 Views