After reading how Chicago, my home city, is now slated to lose 600 jobs - the 'good news' kept on coming. My wife sent me an article detailing how a Chicago Alderman is proposing a tax on sugary drinks in Chicago. This tax would generate money for some kind of 'Chicago Wellness Fund.' This is ridiculous. BIG GOVERNMENT cannot legislate health. BIG GOVERNMENT cannot legislate WEIGHT LOSS. BIG GOVERNMENT does one thing extremely well - BIG GOVERNMENT REDUCES FREEDOM.
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| This is the effect of a 2 cent per ounce tax proposed in Philadelphia. What am I complaining about - In Chicago, the proposal is 'only' for one cent per ounce! And if the one cent tax became law, how long before it was increased to two cents? |
If someone wants to lose weight, I would heartily suggest that they cut back or completely delete sugary drinks from their diet. No one will successfully lose weight because BIG GOVERNMENT increases the tax on a can of Coca Cola. It will never happen.
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Thursday MENU
breakfast Brad's Raw Crunchy Kale, center cut bacon 330 calories
lunch Sirloin Burger Vegetable Soup, cucumber salad, oyster crackers 396 calories
dinner Huge Spinach Salad, mango, dark chocolate coconut chews 750 calories
SNACKS medjool dates, granola, wasabi peas, mango slices 600 calories
lunch Sirloin Burger Vegetable Soup, cucumber salad, oyster crackers 396 calories
dinner Huge Spinach Salad, mango, dark chocolate coconut chews 750 calories
SNACKS medjool dates, granola, wasabi peas, mango slices 600 calories
total calories consumed 2194 calories
calories burned
home elliptical machine 92 minutes, level 20 2067 calories
Wednesday net calories 127 calories
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Wednesday net calories 127 calories
this article is reproduced from illinoispolicyinstitute.org
CHICAGO EMPLOYERS SAY ‘FAT TAX’ WOULD PUNCH THEM IN THE GUT
by Austin Berg
The Illinois Restaurant Association and the Illinois Hispanic Chamber of Commerce have taken aim at a proposed penny-an-ounce sales tax on soft drinks sold in Chicago, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.
“Chicago restaurants and small businesses, like consumers, are once again starting to thrive after experiencing one of the worst economic downturns in our nation’s history,” Illinois Restaurant Association CEO Sam Toia was quoted as saying in a press release.“The last thing we need is to implement discriminatory policies that will slow growth, drive business out of the city and force businesses to raise prices where it hurts the most: in Chicago families’ wallets.”
The new soda tax, proposed by 12th Ward Alderman George Cardenas, would be the third city-level tax imposed on the sale of soft drinks, and would hike the cost of a $4 12-pack of Coca-Cola to $5.44 – a $1.44, 36-percent increase. Chicago already levies a 9-percent tax on fountain drinks and a 3-percent soft-drink tax on cans and bottles. Revenue from the proposed tax wouldn’t go to the city’s general operating fund – it would flow to a newly established “Chicago Wellness Fund,” the primary purpose of which is to “support the prevention of obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and cancer, as well as oral health improvement.”
Cardenas’ tax would apply to syrups, powders, and canned and bottled soft drinks. He estimates it would generate $134 million a year. “The money spent fighting obesity is just ungodly,” Cardenas told the Sun-Times in July. “We could save billions of dollars if we bring down these numbers.
That may be true, but one of the many problems with Cardenas’ proposed sugary-drink tax is that such a tax has never been proven to cause a decrease in obesity. Sugary-drink taxes have proved, however, to disproportionately affect the poor and less educated.
Minority business owners can also expect to take a hit, according to Illinois Hispanic Chamber of Commerce CEO Omer Duque.
“The regressive beverage tax being proposed by the Chicago City Council will hit many of these minority-owned businesses and their hard-working employees right where it hurts: their bottom lines,” said Duque in a press release.
“My members already face enough headwinds while striving to build and maintain successful businesses and meet payroll for their employees. The last thing they need is the government piling on with another job-killing tax.”
Tone-deaf tax increases like the soda tax are one of the reasons why Cook County is facing a serious taxpayer-exodus problem. If Chicago is to avoid bankruptcy, city leaders need to spend less time pushing tax schemes aimed at fighting obesity and more time thinking of ways to trim bloated city spending.
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and this is from dailysignal.com
How US Sugar Policies Just Helped America Lose 600 Jobs
by Bryan Riley
The manufacturer of Oreo cookies recently announced plans to move production of Oreos from Chicago to Mexico, resulting in a loss of 600 U.S. jobs.This should be a wake-up call to defenders of the U.S. sugar program and other job-destroying trade barriers.
The leading ingredient in Oreos is sugar, and U.S. trade barriers currently require Americans to pay twice the average world prices for sugar.
Sugar-using industries now have a big incentive to relocate from the United States to countries where access to their primary ingredient is not restricted.If the government wants people making Oreo cookies and similar products to keep their jobs, a logical starting point would be to eliminate the U.S. sugar program, including barriers to imported sugar.
This obvious connection between the lost jobs and sugar quotas was missed by many observers. According to one online commenter: “This is why tariff[s] on products coming to U.S must be raised.”
That’s backwards. When protectionist policies like the U.S. sugar program lead to offshoring, the response shouldn’t be to pass new laws to discourage such offshoring or to raise tariffs even higher. The response should be to eliminate government policies that encourage offshoring in the first place.The loss of Oreo cookie jobs should reinforce a lesson on the job-destroying aspect of protectionist trade policies.
According to a 2006 report from the government’s International Trade Administration: “Chicago, one of the largest U.S. cities for confectionery manufacturing, has lost nearly one-third of its SCP (supply chain planning) manufacturing jobs over the last 13 years. These losses are attributed, in part, to high U.S. sugar prices.” That lesson appears to be lost on unions that are supposed to represent the workers losing their jobs in Chicago.
For example, The Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers Union consistently has opposed free trade agreements with sugar-producing countries like Australia, Brazil, and Mexico—the kind of trade deals that just might protect their members’ jobs.
So that’s how the cookie crumbles.
