Healthy Tax Idea
California has serious budget problems. The government could shut down completely and stop paying all employees, collect all this years taxes, and still have a huge deficit. Thus, we not only need to make cutbacks, but the state must find more sources of revenue.
There are major problems within the legislative system. There are outdated rules from the 30′s restricting the ability of the California legislature to make changes easy.
If any of those are ever changed, or major majorities are ever able to agree and change some rules, I read about a tax idea today that I would hope they consider using.
The idea is for a tax on junk food and sodas. Basically, the state wins with both increased revenues in the short term and lower health care costs in the long term. Hopefully, people win by getting healthier.
I am not opposed to taxes. I believe taxes should benefit society by contributing revenue to the government and by taxing acts which society can agree are not entirely beneficial to the greater good. I also believe taxes should be applied equally to everyone from the top level standpoint.
Thus, I think taxes on cigarettes, alcohol, gas-guzzling cars, even gasoline or other ozone depleting products are a good idea. California legalized marijuana; why aren’t we taxing that?
Taxing unhealthy foods only makes sense. I refuse to believe that it unfairly targets poor people because they eat more junk food than richer people. I can show you plenty of very poor countries where the people live off of rice, beans and if they’re lucky, chicken, and probably eat healthier than a majority of our country. Poor people can learn to eat healthier either by choice, or by price.
I am sure there are deeper arguments for and against this idea. Is it biased in any other way? Would it not really provide much incremental income for the state? What else am I missing?
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That’s a good way of thinking. I think Marijuana will already be taxed heavily. Same goes for things considered ‘luxury and/or harmful’. What’s the short term strategy California administration has in mind? Ask Washington to bail them out?
Isn’t everyone doing that nowadays?