How about we just legalize marijuana and tax the shit out of it?

What Jack said AND
How about they learn something aboput fiscal responsibilty instead of coming up with new tax ideas????
Even tho I voted for 66/67 it is still a tiny band-aid on a gigantic boo-boo. Coming up with witty tax schemes instead of learning how NOT to waste money is a shitty plan IMHOOOOOO.

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Tax it. Legalize and tax everything. Roll the price of long-term health care into the original purchase.

In terms of diverting federal funds to the state it's great because federal subsidies make fast food cheap. Some (all?) of that tax should go into subsidizing vegetables

This is dumb. If we want to encourage people to eat healthier food, this isn't the way to do it. Unfortunately for a lot of people fast food is all they have access to, be it because of time, location, or financial considerations. Throw a tax in and you'll have a lot of pissed off lower-income people

The more effective way to actually cause some change in the fast food system is to examine the cause, not the effects- eliminate corn subsidies and that'll encourage large scale farms to grow a wider variety of vegetables (and more of them) and to produce meat in smaller quantities, and more ethically as well. Not to mention it'll a. make the government back some money and b. more than likely produce a healthier population which will then c. be less strenuous on our national healthcare system- if that ever happens.

And yeah even though it was somewhat unrelated to the topic, they should absolutely legalize marijuana and tax that. Less money spent on the drug war + additional tax income? Hell to the yes.

Tax the shit out of it. I'm for universal health care but I'm also for not having to pay for people's health care when their bodies eventually fail from making soda, crap food and inactivity habitual. Particularly when the FIRST thing a proper doctor will tell them when they are forced to go is to eat less crap and start exercising more.

From a pure capitalist analysis, unhealthy food produces and externality in the form of health problems. With disease care-health care at 17% of GNP, and rising, it is a big externality we are subsidizing through health care premiums and taxes - Medicare and Medicaid. Today US health care expenditures at about 2.6 trillion, we are subsidizing unhealthy food to probably about a trillion a year. That's with a 30 billion food industry. So yes, tax unhealthy food, by calories and fat per serving, for prepared food and store bought. And newspaper, stop writing stupid reviews about things like donut bacon cheeseburgers.

@ el cubano -

Dunno how fast food you've eaten lately, but it's no longer cheap so I would drop the misconception that it's the poor who are primarily eating it. A combo meal at most fast food joints will run you upwards of $6.

I can go to New Seasons and get a much healthier wok bowl for the same price, and have taken in a quarter of the calories.

The people who are eating fast food the most are those with little time/means to prepare/eat meals.

"Dunno how fast food you've eaten lately, but it's no longer cheap so I would drop the misconception that it's the poor who are primarily eating it. A combo meal at most fast food joints will run you upwards of $6.

I can go to New Seasons and get a much healthier wok bowl for the same price, and have taken in a quarter of the calories."

Anyone else see the unintended hilarity in this comment?

Sorry el cubano, people have agency. There are plenty of low-income people who don't eat fast food. Just look around Portland.

Access/time is not an issue if you plan to eat better, which is what it takes-a little planning. For some, fast food is an easy option, but not the only one. If you can find a McDonalds 5-10 times a week, you can find a grocery store, too. Eating fast food that often is not cost-effective.

And today, regardless of time and access, there are less unhealthy options on fast food menus which means even less chance to shirk responsibility.

@jackattack, I dare you to find a New Seasons wok bowl/ lunch buffet/whatever that beats the number of calories and grams of protein I get for $2.99 with Wendy's value meals.

@two squatting women I am looking around Portland. There's a good chance that we are looking at two very different Portlands. My girlfriend's family is fairly poor- almost all of them live in low-income REACH housing and are all on food stamps and a couple of them get SSI, a fairly small amount. A lot of the jobs they get are temporary or under the table, paying them a pretty small amount of money that they keep for themselves.

Because it can get fairly expensive on the electric bill (especially over the winter) to pay for having the stove/oven on all the time, not to mention spending a good deal of time working or commuting to and from work, fast food is often the option they go to. This applies to several other people I know as well, while their situation may not be as terrible they have to work many more hours and simply don't have the time or money to afford much else than McD's/BK/Wendy's/Taco Bell, and they usually order off the "value" menu. A lot of these people simply can't afford to eat better, but as I was saying, eliminate the cause of the problems with fast food (federal subsidies) instead of negatively reinforcing the effects (taxing people for consuming massive amounts of cheap food) and you have a much more fair, effective, and ethical food chain. It's dumb to tax fast food to the point it's not affordable- familes that are middle class and above who can afford the tax will continue to pay for it regardless (just as they've continued to pay for higher gas prices instead of switching en masse) and it adds financial stress to those who are already in dire financial straits.

I don't disagree that people have the "choice" to cook for themselves- and if you're a large household it is more cost effective. But the fact of the matter is with so many processed, dehydrated, and other assorted b.s. people can throw into a microwave and nuke for 60 seconds, shopping at a grocery store and eating at home for people that don't cook and have no interest in learning how to become better cooks (believe it or not, a lot of these people exist, especially in America!) can be just as unhealthy.

And furthermore, while we're on this topic, you might want to try thinking outside of what happens inside our fair little progressive bubble and consider the fact that this is a measure that would be taken nationally, and not just a "Portland thing." Other states are not as forgiving and free-giving with welfare and food stamps as Oregon is (especially the food stamp part) so many peoples' only affordable option is fast food whether for lack of anything else in their town or because they can't afford it. In several states, they're still going by the federal minimum wage of $7.25 and that's a godsend compared to what it was a few years ago. But throw in higher state income taxes, state sales tax, and now this and that 99 cent cheeseburger is becoming more and more expensive to someone who only has a few bucks left in their wallet and no food at home. That doesn't strike me as right, and more importantly, would do little towards fixing the actual problem.

@ ragold -

If you need that kind of sustenance and can stomach that stuff...more power to you.

/smug

el cubano,

We're looking at the same Portland. And I have perspective on this, too. Show me people who have NO other option than fast food, then when ordering have NO other option than to get the worst thing on the menu and ONLY spend 2 bucks on a meal (no chance on this one) and I'll lean your way on this. Years ago, perhaps this was the case. Not anymore.


The "poor tax" excuse doesn't fly. If that's your angle, go after the lottery. That's way, way more of a poor tax. In fact, it's a pipeline from the poor straight to the state coffers. Not a bit of sustenance anyone gets from a scratch-off.

It's not that I'm unsympathetic to the economy of food. But I really want some serious qualitative research on a sample of the population and how they're boxed into their fast food choices, not just out-dated, flimsy, speculation on the matter.

Plus, there's enough info out there that eating fast food means eating more fecal flecks, snouts and anuses. I'll take something zapped in the microwave over that any day.

Personally I find shopping at the grocery and cooking dinner every night to be insanely less expensive than eating fast food.

For one thing, fruits and vegetables are dirt cheap, and you're supposed to be eating more of those than any other form of sustenance.

Another reason would be that we often cook enough to have leftovers the next day for my lunch, thus I'm not spending money on lunch that day.

This is not rocket science. People are just lazy. Fat people, typically more so.

/flamesuit on

We should just tax the fat right off of people. Unless you get a doctor's excuse - for genetic reasons or meds, for example - just hoist every American onto a scale one a year and TAX THE FAT!

Here in Oregon, a sales tax would be much more egalitarian than essentially taxing poor people. In places where sales tax is already maxed and taxing junk food seems like an answer to all of their money problems - it seems pretty unjust to do so unless there is a coincident subsidy/tax break for buying healthy foods.

A lot of people buy junk food because it tastes good. But many more, I'm willing to bet (and it seems research has shown) buy junk food because they are poor and you can buy a lot of junk food for a small price. A lot of people who are poor need to buy food with lots of preservatives so that it lasts the whole month without going bad. Many poor people don't even have access to decent fresh foods in the stores they shop in - if they do it can be many times more expensive than the chemical-laden junk food offered an isle over.

Taxing junk food may make some folks feel good bc you're taxing people who make bad decisions about what they eat. But ultimately you're taxing (both literally and figuratively) the poor, the uneducated and those who don't have the ability to keep perishable food fresh or people who don't have a way to get out to a store that has fresh food to begin with.