The “It’s Good For You” Tax

Written By D.

New York Governor Paterson wants to add an 18% tax on non-diet soft drinks. Would you believe he wants to encourage drinking diet soft drinks to help fight obesity? I guess we could call it the obesity prevention tax. I am truly amused that he wants to fight obesity with a tax. But apparently we are now being told by researchers that both non-diet and diet soft drinks are unhealthy and drinking more than one per day can have negative health consequences including obesity. Oops!

So now that all soft drinks are bad for us, I guess Governor Paterson has two choices, tax all soft drinks at 18% or skip the tax altogether. Which do you think he would choose? I think he will ignore the information and just stay on the obesity prevention tax superhighway, just like global warming advocates ignore the fact that the planet is getting cooler.

It is bad enough that forty new taxes are being added to the already overburdened taxpayers of New York without insulting taxpayer intelligence by telling them that a tax is going to help them make a healthy choice which, turns out, isn’t even true. Why not just tell it like it is? Something like, “We are broke, but unwilling to make any cuts in our bloated (as in obese) budget, therefore you suckers (as in taxpayers) will just have to pay more. We don’t intend to sacrifice our pork, so you’ll just have to suffer.”

When politicians tell us they are helping us by hurting us, I’d say be sure to remember them when they run for election or re-election. Bailing out on these “tax and spend liberals gone crazy” at the polls will be the best way to help yourself. People who advocate “behavior modification taxes” need to be sent a message.

By the way, I love Coca-Cola, I drink at least one per day, I’m drinking one right now. I am not obese and I don’t really believe soft drinks cause obesity or other major health problems that a person wouldn’t already be predisposed to genetically. Hmmm … now I’ve gone and done it … I can just hear them tax and spenders thinking now … how about a tax on defective genes? After all, everyone has a few defective genes, what a great source of new revenue.