Soda Tax? -- We saw this coming

All right, we'd like to see everyone living healthier, and thus happier lives; however, attempting more social engineering through taxation isn't the answer and hasn't been terribly successful where it's been implemented. It is also a misuse of the power to tax. 

As for funding more education to promote healthy behavior, including eating habits, the private sector has been doing a very good job of getting that information out for quite a while. It's probably been effective with those who are open to listening and willing, as individuals, to modify their life styles. A majority simply tune out and go along their merry way, healthy or not. In fact, a barrage of infomercials has a reverse effect. Many people just get tired of it all and stop hearing the messages. I see no reason to throw more taxpayer dollars at what the medical community and the private sector is already doing.

Nonetheless, as expected, the administration, led by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelious is charging down this road to the tune of a proposal to spend $650 million dollars of our money on just such an approach. They are also seriously proposing a "Soda Tax" (tax on soft drinks) to discourage their consumption. Personally, I don't like sweet beverages, whether sweetened by sugar or substitutes. I prefer water, iced tea and juices. But I don't intend to impose my preferences on others nor do I support my government attempting to do so through taxation.

For more information on this topic, see the article at this link.

Obama Administration Using Stimulus Money to Encourage ‘Healthful Lifestyle Habits’
Friday, September 18, 2009
By Susan Jones, Senior Editor

(CNSNews.com) - The Health and Human Services Department plans to spend $650 million tax dollars encouraging Americans to develop "healthful lifestyle habits."

Soda tax?

 In a recent interview with “Men’s Health” magazine, President Barack Obama said the idea of taxing soda and sugary drinks is something “that we should be exploring.”

 "There's no doubt that our kids drink way too much soda,” Obama said in the interview released last week. “And every study that's been done about obesity shows that there is as high a correlation between increased soda consumption and obesity as just about anything else."

 This week, the “New England Journal of Medicine” called for a penny-per-ounce tax on soda.

 But critics, including the American Beverage Association, argue that a soda tax won’t reduce obesity. “You just can’t tax someone to better health,” the group argues. It says a soft drink tax “has far more to do with a money grab by big government to pay for even bigger government.”

 The Center for Consumer Freedom, a food and restaurant industry group, points to an analysis showing that, to actually make a dent in the obesity rates, Congress would need a 1,200 percent tax on soda – which works out to $9 in tax on a 75-cent can.

 "The tax code shouldn't be a tool for social engineering," said J. Justin Wilson, senior research analyst at the Center. "Nor should it be an instrument for penalizing individuals who make food choices that some people in government don't like."