New York planning 'fat tax' on drinks

[Richard]

New York’s Soda Tax Scam

Steven Milloy
Junk Science
Friday, Dec 26, 2008

New York Governor David Paterson has proposed to levy an 18 percent tax on non-diet soft drinks under the guise of combating obesity. Government doesn’t get much more cynical than this.

After alleging that “almost one in four New Yorkers under age 18 are obese,” Paterson’s budget proposal for 2009-2010 asserts that, “Significant price increases should discourage individuals, especially children and teenagers, from consumption and help fight obesity which results in higher risk for diabetes and heart disease.” So the purpose of the tax, according to proposal, is to discourage people from drinking non-diet soft drinks.

The proposal then estimates that the tax will raise $404 million during 2009-2010 and — get this — $539 million during 2010-2011. Since tax revenues from non-diet soft drink sales are budgeted to increase rather than decrease — as one might expect from the alleged purpose of the tax — Paterson actually seems to be counting on the tax not working. Combating obesity is not grounds for the tax; it is, instead, camouflage for it — and not very good camouflage at that.

In his Dec. 18 New York Times paean to the tax, columnist Nicholas Kristof ominously intoned that, “The average American consumes about 35 gallons of non-diet soda each year and gets more added sugar from soda than from desserts.”

But that 35 gallons works out to about a can of non-diet soda (containing about 140 calories) per day. Is a can of non-diet soda per day something to worry about? If common sense is not enough to answer that question, then consider the food recommendations made by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).

In its dietary guidelines for Americans — a.k.a. the “Food Pyramid” — the USDA recommends the servings that should be consumed daily from different food groups, including fruits, vegetables, grains, meats, milk and oils. The USDA makes these recommendations for different levels of individual daily calorie consumption, starting at a 1,000-calorie-per-day diet and going up to a 3,200 calorie-per-day diet.

In addition to fruits, vegetables, grains and the other food groups, the USDA also includes a category labeled, “Discretionary calorie allowance,” which constitutes the calories left over for each diet level after consuming the recommended amounts from the other food groups. Someone who should consume 1,000 calories per day and who ate the recommended portions of fruits, grains, meats, milk and oils would only have consumed 835 calories. That person would have 165 calories left over for discretionary eating — more than enough room for a 140-calorie can of non-diet soda. At the high-end of daily calorie consumption, someone who is on a 3,200-calorie-per-day diet would have a discretionary calorie allowance of 648 calories — more than 4.5 cans of non-diet soda.

The bottom line is that, all calories being equal, a can of non-diet soda per day — that is, Kristof’s ominous 35 gallons per year — is well with the guidelines of the USDA’s Food Pyramid for most people and so cannot be viewed as a persuasive factoid in support of Paterson’s proposed tax.

Kristof is also way off base in his effort to liken non-diet soft drinks to tobacco. “These days,” Kristof asserts, “sugary drinks are to American health roughly what tobacco was a generation ago.” Kristof then quotes long-time food nanny Barry Popkin, who says, “Soft drinks are linked to diabetes and obesity in the way that tobacco is to lung cancer.”

As this column has pointed out before, there simply is no scientific basis for concluding that non-diet drinks cause obesity or diabetes. The National Academy of Sciences concluded in 2002 that, “There is no clear and consistent association between increased intake of added sugars and [body weight].” And this remains true today.

An August 2008 review of research on soft drinks and weight gain by Emily Wolff (Boston University School of Medicine) and Michael Dansinger (Tufts University) concluded, “Sugar-sweetened soft drink intake has increased dramatically during the past few decades, yet the magnitude of the weight gain and adverse health effects by soft drinks are poorly understood due to a paucity of clinical trial data… which would be necessary to demonstrate a causal link between sugar-sweetened soft drink consumption and weight gain.” The translation is that despite decades of research — including at least five clinical trials — into the health effects of soft drinks, scientists still can’t identify any specific harm with any certainty.

Public health scolds unfortunately often try to blacken and intimidate anyone who disagrees with them by likening them to the tobacco industry. But to the extent there is any deceit-in-the-name-of-money being practiced in the case of non-diet drinks, that charge is more appropriately laid at the feet of the New York Governor and his supporters in the media and public health industry. If this group was sincere about its concern for obese children, it would do something other than just exploiting them as a means of raising money for the state.

http://www.prisonplanet.com/new-yorks-so...-scam.html

[Astrojewels]

Interesting Richard, and I agree that raising taxes will not help the obese children, we already know it is a ploy to get people to digest some aspartame, but it really is a household to household responsibility to stop the overweight problem, no one else can do anything.

[Anu-021413]

Astrojewels[/color]]I agree Anu that it is not good; however they are going to continue to do it as long as there is a market for it, and people should just buy more fresh produce rather than anything packaged to avoid these kind of taxes, and at the end of the day they do not want people to be healthy, because what would happen to the whole system if the population just woke up to the poisonous fast food that is consumed daily? It is the same as the law system, the entire world runs on ‘illegal’ dealings, and without it most businesses would go broke, especially car dealers.

They don’t want to fix the wrongs, because it is these wrongs that keep society going in full circle, this is why I personally do not believe we will ever go to a complete cashless society!

Maybe. Maybe not. In the financial sector things seem to be progressing quickly. cashless or not,any switch would be devastating to many. As far as food goes, I see it being used as a weapon. Period Whomever has more of it,like any other valuable asset,will control things as they see fit. People eat what they can afford to eat. Fast food or packaged,especially if that's all there was to eat. There are places on Earth where people eat dirt and shoes. Seriously. It's sad.  I know what the purpose behind letting things go as they are truly is. I do agree you can eat well if you can cook. But if there's a bottle neck in your ingredients,you're screwed.

[Astrojewels]

20 odd years ago I remember watching and sending in a donation to the ‘feed the world’ campaign, but it remains the same to this day, I may have been a little naive in my thinking that those who had control actually want to help those who eat dirt! Food is a weapon, I agree, but the actual bullet that strikes is knowledge, and that is what they are taking from the population, not food, knowledge on what food is, where it comes from and the nutrients that your body requires is what is being oppressed and the population don’t realize this. The agenda is to create a population that can not be self sufficient, that is the goal.