Sticker shock over Seattle's new sugary drink tax

Also implying natural is better.

At home I’m using a soda stream machine to sparkle my water (mostly tap water), and I found in LaCroix the equivalent of what I drink mostly.

So I think if it exploded as you say, the taste is involved.

My 2 cents.

A smaller government, consistent government and personal freedoms is what I support.

@olympus good point on the gun laws. New York is known for jailing and charging people with felonies. Even when they store the gun and ammo the way the TSA instructional video says to and checks it. https://youtu.be/3Xs_jrnmwoU - I wish the second amendment and full faith and credit clause was more respected. What part about "shall not be infringed" do they not understand?

I imagine sugar tax enforcement would work similarly to the gun enforcement, not dedicated checkpoints for private cars (commercial trucks which already have checkpoints). You get pulled over for speeding, the police officer sees you have 18 cases of soda, and all of a sudden you get two fines.

Ah, so stopping minorities to shake them down for soda.

In all seriousness, you can't just set up border checkpoints in the US. You'd have to have probable cause to stop an individual, and even if you stopped everyone you can't search them without a warrant (which requires probably cause) or their permission.

There are also some cases where it makes no sense, particularly since fuel tax is a primary source of funding for infrastructure and repair.

A Toyota Prius and a Ford Focus are both around 3,000 lbs, will do roughly the same damage on the road. The Prius gets 58 mpg city and 53 highway. The Focus is at 30 city 40 highway. So for city driving the Prius driver contributes 1/2 as much to the fuel tax revenues.

It's a nice incentive to reduce emissions, however the Prius driver is not contributing proportionally to the fuel tax.

If only we could charge make a charge based on weight, mpg, and miles driven.

Research indicates smoking among Australian teenagers declined by about 65-70% in the 15 years to 2014.

[1] http://www.tobaccoinaustralia.org.au/chapter-1-prevalence/1-...

Levying a tax targeted at the poor does not "benefit" them.

1: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db71.htm

A tax on sugar is both a sin tax and a Pigouvian tax. IMO the real reason for its introduction was the sin tax angle, but it's Pigouvian tax principles is what makes it a "good" tax.

I walk 5-6 miles a day around my neighborhood and I very rarely see plastic bags on the streets.

I mainly see crushed canned drinks, fast food wrappers and other garbage that would be left over from eating / drinking on foot or in a car. Most fast food places here use paper bags too.

Even if you bought 1 bag every day for a year that'll be $18.25. Most people won't care enough to reuse bags and will continue doing business as usual pre-tax.

Then of course, there's the ~7.4 billion other people on Earth who never even heard of a plastic bag tax so their habits won't change either.

I would rather see them just stop manufacturing plastic bags and also make them illegal. If their goal is to cut down on people using them that would be the way to do it. Instead, they tax it to an amount where they are hoping more than enough people won't care enough, so they can profit off laziness while they care nothing about the environment.

I care about the environment but I also think we have to be practical about it. Newer and newer gas cars are getting cleaner and more efficient. Or maybe someone enjoys off roading in their Jeep. or someone out of state is touring the nation in their Diesel Pusher RV. I just think it's crazy for a city to try to ban people who live in other cities from even being allowed to drive there based on their car. Well by 2030 and the article mentions the mayor, so maybe it will never happen. I just hate that idea. Maybe the tourism or chamber of commerce would step up for that one.

At least with the soda tax you can just drive out of the city and buy it cheaper like the signs they posted mentioned at the store.