3rdnlng Posted February 15, 2012 Author Posted February 15, 2012 The question is if "sin" taxes work. I don't smoke but the NYS sales tax on cigarettes is pretty high. What happens to the state coffers if the "sin" tax gets a lot of people to quit smoking?
Magox Posted February 15, 2012 Posted February 15, 2012 The question is if "sin" taxes work. I don't smoke but the NYS sales tax on cigarettes is pretty high. What happens to the state coffers if the "sin" tax gets a lot of people to quit smoking? I would say as designed, they may work a little in changing smoking behaviour, but in regards to how that money is spent, well that's why I said some sort of a "lock box", where that money doesn't go towards gov spending programs, but strictly towards wellness programs and promotions of healthier living.
Rob's House Posted February 15, 2012 Posted February 15, 2012 The question is if "sin" taxes work. I don't smoke but the NYS sales tax on cigarettes is pretty high. What happens to the state coffers if the "sin" tax gets a lot of people to quit smoking? Just follow the preacher's advice http://m.youtube.com/index?desktop_uri=%2F&gl=US#/watch?v=dHrVK2iOLXw
DC Tom Posted February 15, 2012 Posted February 15, 2012 I would say as designed, they may work a little in changing smoking behaviour, but in regards to how that money is spent, well that's why I said some sort of a "lock box", where that money doesn't go towards gov spending programs, but strictly towards wellness programs and promotions of healthier living. You mean kind-of like how the NYS Thruway tolls were strictly earmarked for paying off the Thruway bonds...?
Wacka Posted February 15, 2012 Posted February 15, 2012 The question is if "sin" taxes work. I don't smoke but the NYS sales tax on cigarettes is pretty high. What happens to the state coffers if the "sin" tax gets a lot of people to quit smoking? They go to the government for more $. Here in CA we have the Meathead Tax on cigs. It was pushed by Rob Reiner to advertise to stop teens from starting smoking. When less people were smoking, they came begging to the State Legislature for more moolah.
IDBillzFan Posted February 15, 2012 Posted February 15, 2012 I heard a story about a kid walking down the hall with a pop tart- his teacher took it away from him. The teacher has no right to do that. If the teacher wants to dictate, then the teacher should buy the food. But if you want the students to eat better, you give them chicken nuggets? That's kind of backwards.....doesn't get much worse than processed chicken nuggets. I want something to be done- I don't want people to be told by doctors to change their lifestyle or their will be consequences, like I was told. Problem is, how far do you go. There is a dilemma there, if you believe in individual rights. If you don't then I can't help you. My concern as it relates to this story is strictly that the government should never (a) tell my child what to eat and (b) force me to buy something because my child's lunch box is not filled with what the government believes is an unacceptable meal. Yes, I understand there are problems with kids eating bad food. My son would eat a Happy Meal every day...IF I LET HIM. And the reality is that it's easy to see how some parents do allow their children to eat that crap every day; it's cheap and it's fast. "I don't have time to make dinner tonight, so eat this."Does someone actually believe that forcing Happy Meals to have apples is going to keep the kid from eating the fries? No. The parent has to do that. If the parent doesn't do that, then how does that suddenly become everyone else's problem? Because of rising health costs. And the answer is to force people to eat certain foods? In what world does that make sense to anyone but the lazy and clueless? Not to mention, what happens when the government health official makes your child eat something based on some nutritional table without first ensuring your child doesn't have a particular allergy? Maybe what we need is a national database with every child's health information. What if some parents don't provide that information? They should pay a fine. What if they can't afford the fine? Then we should tax the rich to pay the fine so its fair. We can do this all day. Or we can promote self-accountability and provide incentives for GOOD behavior. But no. Have more babies...get more benefits. Get more benefits, get more people dependent on the government to get them by. More dependents, more rules, less freedoms. And suddenly no one is saying a thing when a government official is standing over your child, insisting they start shoving chicken nuggets in their mouth.
DC Tom Posted February 15, 2012 Posted February 15, 2012 My concern as it relates to this story is strictly that the government should never (a) tell my child what to eat and (b) force me to buy something because my child's lunch box is not filled with what the government believes is an unacceptable meal. Yes, I understand there are problems with kids eating bad food. My son would eat a Happy Meal every day...IF I LET HIM. And the reality is that it's easy to see how some parents do allow their children to eat that crap every day; it's cheap and it's fast. "I don't have time to make dinner tonight, so eat this."Does someone actually believe that forcing Happy Meals to have apples is going to keep the kid from eating the fries? No. The parent has to do that. If the parent doesn't do that, then how does that suddenly become everyone else's problem? Because of rising health costs. And the answer is to force people to eat certain foods? In what world does that make sense to anyone but the lazy and clueless? Not to mention, what happens when the government health official makes your child eat something based on some nutritional table without first ensuring your child doesn't have a particular allergy? Maybe what we need is a national database with every child's health information. What if some parents don't provide that information? They should pay a fine. What if they can't afford the fine? Then we should tax the rich to pay the fine so its fair. We can do this all day. Or we can promote self-accountability and provide incentives for GOOD behavior. But no. Have more babies...get more benefits. Get more benefits, get more people dependent on the government to get them by. More dependents, more rules, less freedoms. And suddenly no one is saying a thing when a government official is standing over your child, insisting they start shoving chicken nuggets in their mouth. That's all well and good, but think of the children!
Magox Posted February 15, 2012 Posted February 15, 2012 You mean kind-of like how the NYS Thruway tolls were strictly earmarked for paying off the Thruway bonds...? That's just robbery.
Koko78 Posted February 15, 2012 Posted February 15, 2012 My favorite stories are the ones like this: Screw your kid, my kid is more important! The main worry for Searles, like many parents, is that her son would have a reaction without actually eating a peanut product. It's possible for Matthew to have a reaction from touching a table or utensil with peanut butter on it and then putting his hand into his mouth or rubbing his eyes, Searles said. You know, cause it's just easier to demand everyone else accommodate your child than it is to teach your kid to wash his freakin' hands.
3rdnlng Posted February 16, 2012 Author Posted February 16, 2012 (edited) I didn't want to start another thread and this is more of the nanny state bs anyway. Leave it to a dem though to come up with this idea. http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/02/15/10418016-arizona-considers-consumer-alert-on-ads-showing-airbrushed-women Edited February 16, 2012 by 3rdnlng
B-Man Posted February 16, 2012 Posted February 16, 2012 Reason Food police are prone to exaggeration.A. Barton Hinkle | February 14, 2012 “It may be better to live under robber barons,” wrote C.S. Lewis, “than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep...but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.” Now there was a fellow who knew a thing or two. Lewis would not be surprised by a recent jeremiad in the journal Nature, arguing that sugar is just as bad for you as tobacco and alcohol, and we all ought to be forced to eat a lot less of it. The authors think it would be grand if the government slapped hefty taxes on foods with added sugar, and outlawed the sale of sugary drinks to minors, and kept sugary-drink-selling stores away from schools and any place inhabited by people who are poor and fat and therefore, presumably, stupid. (Well—“low-income areas plagued by obesity” is how the news stories put it. But we all know what they meant.) Self-appointed food police have been pitching Twinkie taxes, soda taxes, and so on for years. And like advocates of every stripe, they are sometimes prone to exaggerating. Last month researchers (including one at Virginia Tech) claimed slapping a penny-per-ounce tax on soft drinks would raise $13 billion in revenue, save $17 billion in health costs, and prevent (kid you not) 2,600 premature deaths a year—all because it would lead the average adult American to cut nine calories a day. Nine. Meanwhile, the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine has ginned up some good publicity by erecting a couple of anti-cheese billboards in Albany, New York—dairy country, that is. The billboards show a man’s fat gut and a woman’s hamhock thighs and say it’s all cheese’s fault. The FDA, for its part, continues to move forward with plans to restrict salt. The agency started studying the issue five years ago. By last December it had published a proposal in the Federal Register seeking comments on “current and emerging approaches designed to promote sodium reduction.” But the FDA will have to work faster if it wants to keep up with New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. His administration already is spearheading a “nationwide effort to reduce salt in restaurant and packaged foods.” It also has banned trans-fats and smoking in bars, launched a P.R. campaign against occasional smoking, and is in the process of restricting alcohol sales and advertising in the city. Bloomberg is doing this with the approval of his own conscience: As he said at a U.N. conference last fall, making “healthy solutions the default social option” is “ultimately government’s highest duty.” New York Sen. Chuck Schumer evidently agrees and wants to get in on the action. He has asked the FDA to review and possibly ban powdered caffeine. He’s worried a new product called AeroShot could become the next “club drug.” No word yet on Schumer’s thoughts about NoDoz or coffee. As Lewis said, such paternalism “stings with intolerable insult.” It stings all the more because in some cases the government has exacerbated the very problem supposedly requiring redress. Take high-fructose corn syrup, which the Nature piece urges regulating more tightly and which is widely used as a sweetener in the U.S. Why is it widely used? Blame Washington’s import quotas on foreign sugar – and its massive subsidies for corn. Corn is the run-away winner in the farm subsidy Olympics: The Environmental Working Group estimates Americans have shelled out nearly $80 billion in corn subsidies over the past decade and a half. So first we’re forced to pay on the front end for the overproduction of corn, thereby encouraging the use of high fructose corn syrup, and now we’re supposed to pay again on the back end, through soda taxes and the like, to prevent ourselves from drinking too much of it................... Brilliant. This is not an isolated case, either. Recently the EPA imposed strict new smokestack regulations on power companies to reduce, among other things, the release of highly toxic mercury emissions from electricity generation. Wouldn’t want people to breathe that, right? At the same time, new federal light bulb standards effectively have required consumers to purchase newer and more efficient compact fluorescent (CFL) bulbs. And hey, guess what? The average CFL bulb contains about five milligrams of mercury. According to Scientific American, when a CFL breaks, “mercury escapes as a vapor that can be inhaled and as a fine powder that can settle into carpet and other textiles.” In fact, the hazard from CFLs is significant enough that when one breaks, a certain federal agency recommends (a) evacuating all people and pets from the area, (b) opening a window and airing the room out, © shutting off your central air system, and (d) collecting the debris and powder in a sealable glass container, since a plastic bag can’t contain the vapor. Which agency offers those recommendations? The EPA—the very same one that imposed the new smokestack emissions rules. Lewis would not be surpised by that, either.
IDBillzFan Posted February 16, 2012 Posted February 16, 2012 “We just wanted to bring it to the table and start the discussion,” Rep. Katie Hobbs, a Democrat from Phoenix, told the Arizona Republic. “We need to bring attention to these body-image issues, especially with young girls. Girls need to know that they don’t have to look perfect.” You know what else girls need to know? That dumbass state representatives aren't elected so they can address body image issues. Jesus. Who the hell elects these freaking idiots?
3rdnlng Posted February 16, 2012 Author Posted February 16, 2012 You know what else girls need to know? That dumbass state representatives aren't elected so they can address body image issues. Jesus. Who the hell elects these freaking idiots? Freaking idiots.
Booster4324 Posted February 16, 2012 Posted February 16, 2012 This is BS, but can anyone point to an actual federal mandate where a federal or state employee is required to inspect lunches? Where they (local/state) are required to replace items sent in? Did I miss that? Thanks. Oh and if so, I am ready to march with you on Washington to protest. With that said, processed food and diets need to change, but the parents need to do it.
Adam Posted February 16, 2012 Posted February 16, 2012 This is BS, but can anyone point to an actual federal mandate where a federal or state employee is required to inspect lunches? Where they (local/state) are required to replace items sent in? Did I miss that? Thanks. Oh and if so, I am ready to march with you on Washington to protest. With that said, processed food and diets need to change, but the parents need to do it. The parents need to do it, but they somehow need to be educated, because they are idiots.
3rdnlng Posted February 16, 2012 Author Posted February 16, 2012 This is BS, but can anyone point to an actual federal mandate where a federal or state employee is required to inspect lunches? Where they (local/state) are required to replace items sent in? Did I miss that? Thanks. Oh and if so, I am ready to march with you on Washington to protest. With that said, processed food and diets need to change, but the parents need to do it. Just the idea that they think they can do it is scary. What, the 4 year old kid is going to stand up to the adult? The problem is that government employees feel entitled to get away with this schit.
Booster4324 Posted February 16, 2012 Posted February 16, 2012 Education for the parents is where government needs to focus its efforts IMO. I do not mean huge advertising campaigns, as the schools should direct them to websites that have appropriate education. Provide a free class (via the web) on what is appropriate in a child's diet and will help with their health, but also give tips on how to deal with fussy eaters (there are gov websites like that, but they have not been promoted properly IMO).
B-Man Posted February 16, 2012 Posted February 16, 2012 Just the idea that they think they can do it is scary. What, the 4 year old kid is going to stand up to the adult? The problem is that government employees feel entitled to get away with this schit. Think of it from the kid's point of view............................................... The school just told him that the lunch his own mother made for him, was not good enough What is he to think now ? .
Booster4324 Posted February 16, 2012 Posted February 16, 2012 Just the idea that they think they can do it is scary. What, the 4 year old kid is going to stand up to the adult? The problem is that government employees feel entitled to get away with this schit. I will not argue with that. How anyone could take themselves seriously as a lunch box inspector is beyond me. How does that work on a 1st date? "So, what do you do for a living?" "I inspect pre-schoolers lunch boxes." <crickets> "I also get to dust the chalk boards... "
Adam Posted February 16, 2012 Posted February 16, 2012 I will not argue with that. How anyone could take themselves seriously as a lunch box inspector is beyond me. How does that work on a 1st date? "So, what do you do for a living?" "I inspect pre-schoolers lunch boxes." <crickets> "I also get to dust the chalk boards... " This gets post of the day, for being hilarious!
Recommended Posts