{"id":340617,"date":"2010-02-18T19:00:00","date_gmt":"2010-02-19T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"tag:consumerfreedom.com:\/\/e1c7406413c3a695565566ce8cb73843"},"modified":"2010-02-18T19:00:00","modified_gmt":"2010-02-19T00:00:00","slug":"the-golden-state-soda-tax","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/340617","title":{"rendered":"The Golden State Soda Tax"},"content":{"rendered":"

California lawmakers are considering imposing a $1.5 billion “soda tax”<\/a> on the economically beleaguered residents of that nearly bankrupt state. State Senator Dean Florez (D-Fresno) has proposed to tax sweetened drinks at the rate of a penny per teaspoon of sugar in an ill-guided attempt to control obesity rates. That would add an extra 9 to 10 cents to the average can of pop.<\/p>\n

Florez claims his new tax would help address obesity-related health care problems that cost California $41 billion each year. Not surprisingly, “Twinkie Tax” activist Kelly Brownell<\/a> lent his so-called expertise to this unfounded alarmism. At a November 2009 hearing attended by Florez, Brownell testified that science has established a definite link between obesity and sugar-sweetened beverages. Florez himself even bellowed that “I would like to end the Pepsi Generation.”<\/p>\n

But as we’ve explained, there is no conclusive evidence supporting a link<\/a> between soda consumption and obesity. In a statement yesterday denouncing the foolishness of the Florez soda tax<\/a> that was picked up by several California newspapers<\/a>, we noted, “It’s only the overconsumption of calories, whether from soda or other foods and drinks, that leads people to put on extra pounds.”<\/p>\n

Politicians, though, are oblivious to the science. Their real motivation is to find another source of revenue to subsidize reckless government spending. What California needs isn’t “fat taxes,” but for its so-called leaders to go on a spending diet.<\/p>\n

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California lawmakers are considering imposing a $1.5 billion “soda tax” on the economically beleaguered residents of that nearly bankrupt state. State Senator Dean Florez (D-Fresno) has proposed to tax sweetened drinks at the rate of a penny per teaspoon of sugar in an ill-guided attempt to control obesity rates. That would add an extra 9 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4054,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-340617","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340617","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4054"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=340617"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340617\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=340617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=340617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=340617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}