OPINION: If the soda tax were out of sight, would it be out of mind?
The tax dwarfs the new penny-an-ounce sweetened beverage tax that now has so many
You may not regularly purchase alcohol that's 40 proof and up -- think bourbon, whiskey, vodka, tequila, Everclear and so on. And even if you do, the state, county and city "sin" taxes that add up to
The same is true of the combined nearly
Ditto gasoline taxes.
"When customers actually see the tax, they tend to get angry," said
County officials wanted it otherwise. The original ordinance said the tax "must be included in the selling price ... (as) advertised or posted," and that retailers could state it separately on receipts if they chose.
But due to complexities in the tax code, the
Both are issues that nimble point-of-sale software could address, but the SNAP problem suggests a bigger question:
If these sweetened beverages are as bad for you -- as nutritionally empty and disease-enabling -- as the current pro-tax advertising campaign has been insisting, then why does the government help low-income people buy them?
SNAP benefits don't cover booze or cigarettes, after all. So by the same health-based logic used to justify the sweetened beverage tax, SNAP should exclude soda, energy drinks, bottled Frappuccinos and all the other drinks to which a penny an ounce has been added to the price.
Such a change would send a dramatic signal to parents of all income levels to stop encouraging their kids to swill pop and maybe cut back a little themselves.
And it would be consistent with one of
Of course such a change would require a federal waiver that Big Soda would try mightily to block. Taxpayers subsidize sugar crops, then subsidize the purchase of sugary drinks, then subsidize the health care for those sickened by them, and that's how they like it.
Far likelier is that the
Would it have been more popular if it had been hidden? We'll probably never know.
Wait, what?
Look, I understand the need for credit rating agencies and the services they perform, mostly for financial companies and major retailers. They facilitate commerce. And to do so they need to keep track of how we've been interacting with our creditors.
But I've never hired
When I learned that last week
No. Since you didn't protect the data,
Let these companies make it easier -- and free -- to freeze your credit account to protect from fraud. Tell them to stop making us work and pay to compensate for the inadequacies in their system. If they can't safeguard our information, force them to make it less valuable to thieves.
Survey says ...
"I can't think of anything worse than having government more involved in your health care," said
Really? Gallup took a survey on this very point in 2015 and headlined its report, "Americans With Government Health Plans Most Satisfied."
Under the heading "Percentage satisfied with the way the health system is working," military personnel and veterans topped the list with 78 percent satisfaction. Recipients of Medicare (77 percent) and Medicaid (75 percent) were next. Then came nongovernment insurance from unions (71 percent) and employers (69 percent).
Sanders doubled down, sniffing that last year's elections, including his own defeat in the Democratic primary, were "a pretty clear indication of what America wants to see, and its not a single-payer system."
I dunno. Depends on how you word the question, I suppose, but a
Meanwhile, Gallup's most recent job-approval number for Sanders' boss, President
Re: Tweets
The winner of the Tweet of the Week poll was this quip by @xLiserx: "If somebody doesn't text me back within 5 minutes I assume they don't love me or that they've died from loving me too much."
If you'd like to be alerted when each new poll goes live, email me and I'll put you on the very special list.
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