Senate Considers Taxing Soda to Pay For Health Care

  While he was a candidate the president promised over and over again that he would give 95% of Americans a tax break. Skeptics warned that there was no way that the president could fund all of his policies and still cut taxes on 95% of Americans. It is true that many Americans have received a small break in the amount of income tax that they pay, but it is also true that on April 1st of this year he officially broke his no taxes on people making under $250,000 pledge and wiped out that income tax break for many people when he raised the cigarette tax by 61 cents a pack to pay for his SCHIP expansion plan.

  And now the senate may be ready to help the president break that promise again, and on possibly an even larger percentage of the people than were screwed over by the cigarette tax increase. (Of course most of those who are paying the higher cigarette tax are about to get screwed for the second time.) The senate is getting ready to debate the possibility of creating a federal tax on soda and other sugary drinks. It looks like the skeptics were right, two of the president’s major agenda items and new taxes have to be raised to fund them.

  This is what happens when we let the government begin to tax us for behaviors that they do not approve of. Just look at the following argument that is being used to justify a new sugar tax:

Soda is clearly one of the most harmful products in the food supply, and it’s something government should discourage the consumption of

  How is that for an admission that they feel the government should control what they deem as harmful or bad behavior? This all started with cigarettes. Once it became acceptable in the minds of the people that tobacco should be taxed because it is bad for us the ball was set in motion. Now that there is a new program that needs funding and the smokers were already hit with a tax increase of 126% last April they have to look at other sin taxes and suddenly drinking soda is a sin that needs to be taxed and eventually regulated. This is what happens when we let the government regulate behaviors.

  Don’t think for one second that if this tax passes that it will stop there. There will be candy bar taxes and salt taxes, taxes on alcohol and trans fats as well as taxes on whatever else the government decides is bad for us and what they consider bad behavior. And don’t forget about a gas tax increase, gas usage is bad for the planet according to the government and we should pay more for that according to these same politicians.

  The president can claim that he cut taxes on 95% of Americans all he wants to but he is ignoring the fact that he has raised, and the senate is proposing to raise, other taxes that those same Americans have to pay. Eventually the new taxes will be more than the temporary income tax decrease and these taxes will NOT be temporary.

   You just can’t have massive spending increases and still cut taxes on most Americans. It sounded great and many people wanted to believe it but it never was realistic. The numbers do not add up and many of us knew that from the beginning. Hopefully all Americans will realize this before it is too late. If it isn’t already.