Sin Tax Confidential: It's Always The De Classe Products That Get Popped

Nick Gillespie | June 1, 2009

Over at Splice Today, Russ Smith asks "If Pepsi Is Taxed, Why Not Starbucks?": 

Let's play along with the Ivory Tower bigwigs and self-appointed health gurus who are advocating the tax on "sugary" drinks as a means of off-setting the enormous costs of President Obama's back-breaking health care initiative, as well as combating bad habits. Why stop at soda? How about a tax on every calorie-laden coffee drink served at Starbucks and its competitors? After all, a vanilla bean frappuccino with whipped cream is more than 500 calories, a beverage that health researcher Mike Adams calls "dessert in a cup." Throw in a scone or brownie with one of those Starbucks "desserts" and a consumer is approaching, at mid-morning, the daily recommended calorie intake....

[New sin taxes are always] aimed at the déclassé products, such as soda and fast-food burgers.... If it's true...that "we" would be thinner and richer by laying off sugary drinks, wouldn't the same apply to the more upscale foodstuffs consumed every day? After all, obesity knows no economic boundaries; there are overweight Americans in every strata of society.

Oh, and as another sop to the alleged new bipartisanship in Washington, why not slap a heavy tax on country club memberships, restaurant meals that total more than $150 for a table of two, and increase the alcohol sin tax on pricey wines and premium brands of spirits?

Whole thing here.

For a great history lesson (the type that is actually interesting!) on how expensive goods somehow get through the sin-tax net, check out this interview Reason did with economist John Nye, who locates the origin of big government in 18th-century England from a scarifying alliance between brewers and taxmen who worked to keep cheap French wines out of the U.K., thereby securing local markets for the beermen and more excise tax for the gummint.

Comments

The Emperor Of Sugar|6.1.09 @ 10:23PM|#

Bwahaha! Even now my army of Oompa-Loompas advances on your defenseless tooth enamel with candies of mass destruction!

The sun never sets on Imperial Sugar! You are all DOOMED!!

Kyle Jordan|6.1.09 @ 10:36PM|#

Oh, thank you for posting this Gillespie! There's a cute little liberal chick from my old job that I love to mentally spar with that is going to hate this one!

Fascitis Necrotizante|6.1.09 @ 10:50PM|#

Hamilton's principal reason for the tax [that spurred the Whiskey Rebellion] was that he wanted to pay down the national debt, but he justified the tax "more as a measure of social discipline than as a source of revenue."

anarch|6.1.09 @ 10:59PM|#

Because the underclasses don't know how and/or don't have the resources to compensate for their vices by going to the health-club, the nutritionist, the health-food store, the dentist.

Also, educated, sophisticated classes know what harm they're doing to themselves, therefore they have the right to do it, just like grown-ups who may smoke and drink and stay up late while children may not.

Also, the poor choices of poor people disproportionately burden public services like clinics, which the rich subsidize.

Remove the paternalistic socialism and you can remove the paternalistic nannyism.

That's what I would say, more tactfully, if I were defending such supervision.

Fascitis Necrotizante|6.1.09 @ 11:14PM|#

A friend of mine has some of the worst habits of anyone I have ever met - smokes packs a day, gets wasted every weekend, just about always high, eats only fast food, drinks multiple cokes every day, pours mounds of salt on anything he eats, can't exercise, etc...

Not to rag on him. He's cool.

But he at one point revealed himself to be pro-socialized health care. I asked him if he thought, since we're paying for the consequences of their behavior, if voters can force motorcyclists to wear helmets. He said yes. I asked why he thought voters would continue to allow him to do ANY OF THE THINGS he does with his life. He was like, oh...

If you surrender the responsibility for the consequences of your freedom, you surrender the freedom, too. It's just a little bit further down the road.

hmm|6.1.09 @ 11:22PM|#

I plan on getting all my sin out of the way before it is taxed. This will have a stimulus side effect since I plan on sinning with strippers and substances.

$|6.2.09 @ 1:23AM|#

there are overweight Americans in every strata of society

The rich ones know Latin.

|6.2.09 @ 3:27AM|#

The tobacco situation is similar. My tobacconist tells me that the new tax increases disproportionately effect cigarettes, over and against pipe tobacco and cigars. The pipe tobacco tax hardly increased at all. He said the increase wasn't even enough to justify raising the price per ounce on the bulk blended pipe tobacco.

The worst part?

He says the tax on fucking shag tobacco, like the homeless dudes use to roll their own, increased the most. I'm so happy that they're making their money by depriving the hardest-up people in the whole country of one of their only pleasures.

I might even start giving dollars rather than quarters to panhandlers just to spite them

strata vary us|6.2.09 @ 6:20AM|#

I would hope that a wise Latinate woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life.

Todd Frye|6.2.09 @ 8:25AM|#

'Stratum,' old boy.

ed|6.2.09 @ 8:25AM|#

The cosmic joke is that po' folk tend to vote for the nanny-staters who would then punish them where it hurts most: their limited incomes. Not that reaping what you sow is a bad thing. In a republic such as ours, it's cruel justice.

Xeones|6.2.09 @ 9:00AM|#

Why does Barack Obama hate poor people?

Rhywun|6.2.09 @ 9:25AM|#

A friend of mine has some of the worst habits of anyone I have ever met

Won't he statistically "cost" less over his lifetime? The government should be *encouraging* sin, not punishing it.

|6.2.09 @ 10:42AM|#

"Let's play along with the Ivory Tower bigwigs and self-appointed health gurus who are advocating the tax on "sugary" drinks as a means of off-setting the enormous costs of President Obama's back-breaking health care initiative, as well as combating bad habits. Why stop at soda? How about a tax on every calorie-laden coffee drink served at Starbucks and its competitors? After all, a vanilla bean frappuccino with whipped cream is more than 500 calories, a beverage that health researcher Mike Adams calls "dessert in a cup." Throw in a scone or brownie with one of those Starbucks "desserts" and a consumer is approaching, at mid-morning, the daily recommended calorie intake...."

Senator, there's a paragraph that I'd like you to read and it makes a great deal of sense!

|6.2.09 @ 11:16AM|#

This is something that MNG and I agree on. Sin taxes disproportionally impact those less financially well off.

That's 6.22% total tax on a bottle of Dom Perignon and a 29.95% on a bottle of MD 20/20.*

The Dems loves themselves some poor peoples don't they?

* No need to do the work twice.

JB|6.2.09 @ 1:25PM|#

Hypocrite is as hypocrite does. Why would political creatures want to increase taxes on products they actually use? Do as I say, not as I do.

The single best thing we could do in this country would be to take every lawyer out in the street and torture them before killing them. That would get rid of most politicians too.

Joe from Low Hell|6.2.09 @ 1:47PM|#

The point is that poor people will be forced to be in good shape, while rich people destroy themselves through their low-tax bad habits. Then, the revolution will come.

Just like the British banned opium in Britain but encouraged its use in China, so that the Chinese, who had previously spurned trade with Britain, would become weak and dependent.

Sandman|6.2.09 @ 5:40PM|#

Join the cause! Facebookers unite! Stop the Soda Tax!

http://apps.facebook.com/causes/290964/