Taxes as disincentives aren't always effective...

Posted by $ blarman 6 years, 9 months ago to Government
21 comments | Share | Flag

And one thing the article didn't mention: the travel to obtain those "unhealthy" beverage options is creating more greenhouse gas emissions! Oh the humanity! [/sarcasm]


All Comments

  • Posted by $ 6 years, 9 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Which was pointed out in the article as consumers were driving just outside city limits to get their "fix".
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  • Posted by chad 6 years, 9 months ago
    This also drives consumers to shop somewhere else hurting the businesses where they live which will also drive down the governments' revenues in sales taxes.
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  • Posted by term2 6 years, 9 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Government health care is already worse than it was before they took over. God only knows what will happen when its medicaid for everyone.
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  • Posted by freedomforall 6 years, 9 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Yes, the phone often implements its "spelling" without asking your consent. That causes more problems than it solves.
    The browser checker is passive and just brings unknown words to your attention, so you can act or ignore it. You can even add to the dictionary: words like "objectivist" and "statist."
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  • Posted by $ allosaur 6 years, 9 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Recall landing a job that for going in ignorant got me stuck in an Alabama dry county that happened to be completely surrounded by wet counties. Learned that the first sad day I tried to buy beer at a local convenience store.
    At least three of those wet counties had a convenience food store that sold beer and wine within sight of the dry county's line on the highway. Location! Location!
    Moonshiners were hard at work in that dry county despite being raided by authorities who blew up the stills and poured confiscated hooch down gutters for a newspaper's photographer (that would be me).
    There was a saying I heard over and over again~~"Only Baptists and bootleggers vote to keep this county dry."
    I lived there during the Seventies. Baptists and bootleggers are still keeping that county dry.
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  • Posted by $ 6 years, 9 months ago in reply to this comment.
    That type of arbitrage still happens all over the world. You also see it in the border states in the south with knock-off cigarettes from across the border being sold for a quarter (yes, literally a quarter) per pack when it costs nearly $5 in the stores.
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  • Posted by $ allosaur 6 years, 9 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Me dino read what happened when the price for a pack of cigarettes was jacked way up high for "disincentive" revenue in New York City.
    Tobacco bootleggers were buying cigarettes in across the river New Jersey and selling them for a profit for still being cheaper on the streets of the Big Apple.
    The big bad IRS was not even getting a cut of that action.
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  • Posted by $ jdg 6 years, 9 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I hate spell checkers. The one on my phone introduces more errors than it finds.
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  • Posted by $ jdg 6 years, 9 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Indeed, one of the reasons lefties want government running health care is to "make it their business." Which is really putting the cart before the horse.

    A far more amusing failure of a similar "sin tax" is the increased tobacco taxes that have followed the tobacco lawsuit settlement. Some states have backed off all further attempts to discourage smoking because they themselves are addicted to the revenue the taxes bring in.
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  • Posted by term2 6 years, 9 months ago
    Government should just stay out of trying to affect behaviors like this. Its none of their business at all.
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  • Posted by Lucky 6 years, 9 months ago in reply to this comment.
    mn- your contributions are a bit harder to read but thanks for them anyway.
    This may help, depending on your browser, click on the text on the screen, then press control and plus together, gives bigger size type.
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  • Posted by $ 6 years, 9 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Precisely. Cigarettes are literally a dime a dozen. But because people are addicted, they are willing to pay - and fuel an out-of-control government at the same time.
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  • Posted by mminnick 6 years, 9 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Check out the taxes on a pack of cigarettes. In ainw atrates they make up about 95% of the cost of a pack. It still doesn't dissuade people from smoking.
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  • Posted by mminnick 6 years, 9 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Freedom, I try to but as I've stated before I'm visually impaired and cannot always see the indications of misspelling. I don't have a reader on my computer so I cannot use audio cues to alert me of misspellings. I do apologize for any offense given. None intended and I will attempt to do better in the future.
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  • Posted by $ 6 years, 9 months ago in reply to this comment.
    "Sin taxes" are generally not disincentives because they aren't high enough. They are an inconvenience to consumers that provide revenue for the government - and that's the way that those in power like it. Get people addicted to things and then exploit that addiction for your own personal power.
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  • Posted by Lucky 6 years, 9 months ago
    I clicked thru to the supermarket owner's opinion, then read what the mayor said:
    an ongoing study by three of the most reputable academic institutions in the nation (Harvard University, Johns Hopkins and the University of Pennsylvania) blah blah.

    Maybe, eventually, the public will recognize what has happened to what were once reputable academic institutions.
    There is some link here with the opinion pollsters who made serious bad calls in election forecasting in UK, USA, and now Australia.
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  • Posted by exceller 6 years, 9 months ago
    Worked as well as everything the left does to improve our lives/health.

    One of the unintended consequences of traveling (driving) to sites to buy cheaper soda is increasing CO2 emission, the deadliest sin according to the left.

    Is this why Cortex wants to eliminate any action related to CO2 production?
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  • Posted by freedomforall 6 years, 9 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Please use a spell checker and correct the errors before you post. Your browser should have that feature built-in and it can underline (as you type them) any words that are not in its dictionary.
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  • Posted by mminnick 6 years, 9 months ago
    "Sin taxews" almost never work. Look at the tqaxes on Alcohol products, on cigatett''''s and cigars. all sorts of things like that. they don't keep people from buying them. they are willing to pay the price in order to have the "Sin" of choice.
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