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RANT: City of Seattle toying with soda tax

Started 1 year ago by ernieusafret
Latest reply from JoB

ernieusafret
Member Profile

I just got a call from a research company about a tax on sodas for the city of Seattle.
I can't believe the city council is even thinking about a tax after it was defeated in the state election. Who else would think of it?
Why can't they be made to live within their means like the rest of us have to. I haven't had a raise in 2 years and prices keep going up.
KEEP YOUR HANDS OUT OF MY POCKETS There is nothing left.

Posted 1 year ago #
JoB
Member Profile

ernieusafret,

i am all for the city of Seattle taxing soda
regardless of whether a soda tax failed in a state election

this tax is pretty easy to avoid
don't buy don't soda in the city ...

i know that the tax was defeated statewide
but it would be interesting to see how that tax did in the city limits..

i don't care enough to look..
but it still would be interesting.

Posted 1 year ago #
redblack
Member Profile

i'll gladly pay a soda tax. i voted for it on the state level, and i think it's a good idea.

and thanks for letting me know. now i can tell the city council to vote "yes."

Posted 1 year ago #
angelescrest
Member Profile

Yes, yes, yes.

Posted 1 year ago #
redblack
Member Profile

btw, "keep your hands out of my pockets - there is nothing left" pertains to bank of america, chase, comcast, qwest, state farm, etc. ad nauseum, too.

and more so than the government. i pay far more in bills than i do in taxes.

Posted 1 year ago #
TDe
Member Profile

I don't have a problem paying a few cents more for soft drinks. Maybe it will help fix more streets so I don't have to drive down California Ave like a drunken sailor trying to avoid all the tire bustin' potholes.

Posted 1 year ago #
ernieusafret
Member Profile

"i pay far more in bills than i do in taxes."

Not for long if our government has its way.
This tax is just another foot in the door for higher taxes. Whenever they find out we are willing to pay a tax, for whatever reason, they find out another reason for another one.
If you and I can balance our budgets than WHY can't the government.
I do without for a lot of things bacause I can't afford them.
I worked for a living for my retirement, why should I support those who don't want to.
I know there are some who can't work,or can't find work, but why should I support those families who have been on welfare for generations, and there are some.
I'm just getting fedup with new or increased taxes every year.
Maybe I should change my nic to FEDUP.

Posted 1 year ago #
Rod Clark
Member Profile

Not about taxes, but... if you drink a lot of soda, this is worth watching.

Sugar: The Bitter Truth
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM

It's a comparison of how glucose, fructose and ethanol are metabolized, in particular by the liver. Dr. Robert H. Lustig, a professor of endocrinology at U. of California, presents it in an easy to understand way (if you let the detailed biochemistry reaction slides go by and listen for the summaries).

His conclusion is that quite a lot of glucose intake is fine, but that ethanol and fructose both are processed largely by the liver, and that there are real limits on how much of them it's healthy to consume.

Lustig also gives some data about how too much sugar intake increases one's chances of contracting Type 2 diabetes, and why. Along with other opinionated views on lots of things, including the positive nutritional value of consuming whole fruit but how it's very easy these days to drink too much fructose.

How much is OK and not too much? Something like one ounce of fructose a day, if I read one of the data slides right. The average person in the US is consuming more than that at present, he concludes.

I didn't understand the biochemistry, but have no reason to believe that he and his colleagues at UC are wrong about this.

Posted 1 year ago #
JanS
Member Profile

this reminds me of a show I was watching last night. The guest, a woman whose name escapes me now, called herself a fiscal conservative. And she followed that with the fact that she believed that she shouldn't pay ANY taxes. NONE!. Sounds like a great idea...right? She couldn't answer how the basics would get paid for...clean water, firemen, police, transportation regulations, roads, and on and on. That is the thinking. They don't want to pay any taxes at all...ever. If you think we're in trouble now....imagine what life would be without a gov't. with money. These people really have no idea what it entails.

A soda tax? pffffttt...drink water. You don't have to pay the tax...just shop in Burien...

Posted 1 year ago #
Ken
Member Profile

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Essay:A_Day_In_The_Life_of_Joe_Conservative

and the reverse:

A Day in the Life of a True Conservative

Joe Conservative wakes up in the morning and goes to the bathroom. He flushes his toilet and brushes his teeth, mindful that each flush & brush costs him about 43 cents to his privatized water provider. His wacky, liberal neighbor keeps badgering the company to disclose how clean and safe their water is, but no one ever finds out. Just to be safe, Joe Conservative boils his drinking water.

Joe steps outside and coughs–the pollution is especially bad today, but the smokiest cars are the cheapest ones, so everyone buys ‘em. Joe Conservative checks to make sure he has enough toll money for the 3 different private roads he must drive to work. There is no public transportation, so traffic is backed up and his 10 mile commute takes an hour.

On the way, he drops his 12 year old daughter off at the clothing factory she works at. Paying for kids to go to private school until they’re 18 is a luxury, and Joe needs the extra income coming in. Times are hard and there’re no social safety nets.

He gets to work 5 minutes late and misses the call for Christian prayer, and is immediately docked by his employer. He is not feeling well today, but has no health insurance, since neither his employer nor his government provide it, and paying for it himself is really expensive, since he has a precondition. He just hopes for the best.

Joe’s workday is 12 hours long, because there is no regulation over working hours, and Joe will lose his job if he complains or unionizes. Today is an especially bad day. Joe’s manager demands that he work until midnight, a 16 hour day. Joe does, knowing that he’ll lose his job if he does not.

Finally, after midnight, Joe gets to pick up his daughter and go home. His daughter shows him the deep cut she got on the industrial sewing machine today. Joe is outraged and asks why she doesn’t have metal mesh gloves or other protection. She says the company will not provide it and she’ll have to pay for it out of her own pocket. Joe looks at the wound and decides they’ll use an over the counter disinfectant and bandages until it heals. She’ll have a scar, but getting stitches at the emergency room is expensive.

His daughter also complains that the manager made suggestive overtures towards her. Joe counsels her to be a “good girl” and not rock the boat, or she’ll get fired and they’ll be out the income.

His daughter says she can’t wait until she’s 18 so she can vote for change or go to the Iraq War.

They get home and there’s a message from his elderly father who can’t afford to pay his medical or heating bills. Joe can hear him coughing and shivering.

Joe turns on the radio and the top story is a proposal in Congress to raise the voting age to 25. A rare liberal opinionator states that it’s an attempt to keep power out of the hands of working class Americans. The conservative host immediately quashes him, calling him “a utopian idealist,” and agreeing that people aren’t mature enough to make good choices until they’re at least 25.

Joe chuckles at the wine-swilling, cheese eating liberal egghead and thinks, “Thank God I live in America where I have freedom!”

Note: This reverse on the riff was copied directly from Thom Hartmann's website. The site is marked "(c) Copyright 1996-2007, Mythical Intelligence, Inc. and Thom Hartmann", however, Thom says of the piece in reply to a request for authorship of item/permission to reprint: "It's not original to me...".

Posted 1 year ago #
redblack
Member Profile

ernie: if there are things i want or need, i find a way to pay for them. i don't start out from a position of shutting off the cable, the water, electricity just to save money so that i can have other stuff.

look, the government isn't a business, and it shouldn't be run like one.

speaking of business, government has to be able to regulate and control the largest corporations in our society. you want smaller government? have smaller corporations.

Posted 1 year ago #
anonyme
Member Profile

Redblack, thanks once again for bringing up a truth that is almost universally overlooked, despite assertions by Donald Trump and his ilk. GOVERNMENT IS NOT A BUSINESS. There is nothing at all in the Constitution about government being run as a business, or for the benefit of business. Government exists to serve the people; business serves only itself.

Posted 1 year ago #
Jiggers
Member Profile

Soda isn't good for you anyways.

Posted 1 year ago #
datamuse
Member Profile

I don't really understand the assertion that governments should be run like businesses anyway. Isn't the point of business to make a profit?

Posted 1 year ago #
villagegreen
Member Profile

I find it humorous when people whine and complain about all the seemingly small and ridiculous things that are taxed here. It really comes down to a simple fact, if you don't want to pay taxes on every little thing, pay an income tax like most other civilized states. Otherwise, stop complaining. How else is the government supposed to raise money in order to keep services and the state running?

Posted 1 year ago #
charlabob
Member Profile

Yup, I got called by the same "research group" in their push poll last night. I *tried* to answer the questions so that the corporate shills would have to recognize and record my complete support for the tax. About half way through, I realized that the poll was weighted so that wasn't possible. It was just an attempt to "scare" people or to raise the antitaxers or both.

My favorite questions involved "Do you really believe these crooks will limit their use of taxes to children's health or will they just put the money into the general fund?" There was no way for me to say, "Yup, they'll put it in the general fund -- if they have the sense g-d gave a wombat." So they can take the positive answer of a pro-tax person and twist it into "98 percent of the people don't trust the government to use the money "correctly."

At that point I opted out (and asked the young woman to please make sure my half-completed poll did not make it into the final results.)

I forgot how devious these people are, because I usually say, "No thank you," and hang up.

SO, a long winded way of saying *I think* there's no way for pro-tax results to be included in these bogus polls. If someone else knows a way, let me know.

Posted 1 year ago #
suzanne
Member Profile

Here's an interesting article about the amount of taxes we have had to pay from 1945 to 2011. It includes a cool interactive tool.
http://www.remappingdebate.org/map-data-tool/new-interactive-tool-puts-tax-rates-historical-context

Posted 1 year ago #
JayDee
Member Profile

Go for it! Soda water taxes are pennies that can be avoided if you just buy mass quantities of soda at the Tukwila Costco...and if it helps close the revenue gap, great.

Posted 1 year ago #
JoB
Member Profile

suzanne...
thanks for the great link

Posted 1 year ago #
dawsonct
Member Profile

Gee Ernie, at the end of the year your debt is always zero$? That is interesting, as most Americans can't claim that for themselves. No house payments? No car payments? No credit card bills for that HDTV and home theater system? Bravo, I applaud you for your frugality.
OUR government is not a business, it doesn't need to balance the books or show a profit. And sometimes we citizens NEED to spend more in one year than we have taken in. (Try fighting for OUR GAWD-given petroleum if we have to pay for our interventionist military every year).
People complain about how long it has taken to put our light rail system in place (thanks to Kemper Freeman, Sr., Jr. and their ilk, about forty YEARS too long), but if our government HAD to balance their books every year, things like that would NEVER get built.
Instead of complaining about the system that allows us to do great things collectively that we could NEVER achieve as individuals, why not try complaining about those who have gamed the system solely for their own profits, at YOUR and OUR Nation's expense.

Posted 1 year ago #
JoB
Member Profile

dawsonct...

here here

or maybe that should be

hear hear

;->

Posted 1 year ago #
maplesyrup
Member Profile

I was disappointed that the soda and candy tax was overridden.

If the city wants to bring it back I'm ok with that. A few cents on each candy bar or soda can isn't going to cause anyone to go broke.

Posted 1 year ago #
JoB
Member Profile

What????

tax candy?
not dark chocolate.. it's good for you ;->

Posted 1 year ago #
carter
Member Profile

As far as I'm concerned, tax the crap out of soda, especially diet soda:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpoAtwVyzZI

Nuf said . . .

Posted 1 year ago #
HMC Rich
Member Profile

James Madison said...I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments by those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.

If Seattle wants a tax on soda, fine, but when will that tax end, or some other tax. They are like age spots, they don't seem to go away unless they are cut out. James Madison did NOT state the last paragraph.

Posted 1 year ago #
redblack
Member Profile

rich: define "those in power."

he wasn't referring to the u.s. government. he was referring to aristocracy and monarchy, who have bought their way back into power 230 years later.

taxes are not supposed to "go away." they are supposed to fund the things that we, the people, agree to get done collectively.

government isn't the problem. it's the solution.

Posted 1 year ago #
JanS
Member Profile

oh, good grief, Rich. Simple answer. If there's a tax on soda, and you don't want to pay for it...simply don't buy it. It's that easy...it's a choice. I'm thinking we can all live without soda, if we want.

Posted 1 year ago #
SarahScoot
Member Profile

What I'm confused by is the assumption that the Seattle City Council is responsible for this phone survey. Having no idea what questions were asked or how they were worded, I can't conclude much from the original post. However, I would be surprised if the city were already putting money into telephone surveys on this subject when this tax was overturned just last year. It will probably be a while before they broach the subject with voters again. (Sidenote: I'm all for this tax.)
My guess is the survey is being conducted by a private interest group. Again, I can't draw any conclusion as to which group might be funding this without more information on the exact subjects/order/semantics of the questions, but I doubt this is the work of our government.

Posted 1 year ago #
JoB
Member Profile

HMCRich...

i would think you would in favor of a soda and candy tax...
which places the burden of the increased health costs generated by those products squarely on those who consume them.

Posted 1 year ago #
suzanne
Member Profile

I just participated in the phone survey this morning and I literally started laughing out loud numerous times at the ridiculous questions that were being asked. Based on the questions, it is most definitely being conducted by someone who is opposed to the tax. I was so tempted to hang up, but I wanted my voice, which is strongly in favor of the tax, to be heard.

Posted 1 year ago #
metrognome
Member Profile

folks, please note that the original poster failed to follow the rules for a 'rant' in that he did not contact the City Council with his rant and therefore did not provide their response in his post. I checked the city website; as best I can tell, the City Council is NOT considering a tax on soda ... or anything else: the 2011-2012 budget was passed with NO sales tax increases. It is possible I missed something or there are early discussions about raising the tax way down the road, but the OP would have found this out if s/he had taken the time to follow the rant rules.

So, I'm guessing this supposed tax increase is either an urban legend, or some anti-gubmint group is trying to stir up trouble with a survey about imaginary gubmint wrongdoings.

Posted 1 year ago #
JoB
Member Profile

dang...
maybe we should let the city know we like the idea :->

Posted 1 year ago #
odroku
Member Profile

Add me to the supporters list. Sounds like a great idea. Make it a nice, fat tax too. Loop in candy and fast food while you're at it.

Posted 1 year ago #
datamuse
Member Profile

I'm interested to know how a soda tax would be an abridgement of freedom, myself...and whether a tax on cigarettes isn't already one such. ;)

Posted 1 year ago #
JoB
Member Profile

only if you smoke

Posted 1 year ago #
Rod Clark
Member Profile

Here is Gary Taubes' wide ranging article in Sunday's NY Times about the public health effects of soda and more generally the addition of excessive refined fructose to the diet, and researchers' ideas about its correlations with diabetes, obesity, hypertension, heart disease and the cell growth of cancers.

"Is Sugar Toxic?"
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/magazine/mag-17Sugar-t.html

Posted 1 year ago #
JoB
Member Profile

don't forget the dental bills :(

the sugar is that soda is already extracting a much larger tax than any the government could impose.

Posted 1 year ago #