Or they could stop dumping money into a war nobody gives a shit about anymore and keep our taxes the same.

>> ^rottenseed:

Or they could stop dumping money into a war nobody gives a shit about anymore and keep our taxes the same.


Or they could get out of iraq and afghanistan, reduce income tax, AND do the above.

Why not just tax human life directly? The world is overpopulated by at least 10x as it is. How about a $10,000 tax per kid per year. Sounds good, that should pay those million dollar political salaries pretty nicely.

Okay..since my sarcasm didn't quite drive the point home, I'll explain why this is a misguided idea:

Tanning Salons
-Vitamin D is synthesized in the body after exposure to sunlight. Anyone living far enough from the equator is bound to be deficient in Vitamin D. In fact, go ahead and plot cancer incidence by latitude and you'll see what I mean. Vitamin D prevents cancer and heart disease.

Beef
- Read about Vilhjalmur_Stefansson. In the early 1900s he underwent a scientific study where he ate nothing but meat for a year...and came out healthier than when he went in. Also read about all-meat diets and ketosis. Prolonged ketosis is a cure for diabetes, heart disease and cancer - not to mention periodontal disease. In scientific studies, terminally ill patients who were so far gone they were beyond "medical science" had their tumors go into remission and even clear up completely on a ketosis diet. Cancer cells have a lot of insulin receptors - they respond to glucose, take away the glucose and the cancer starves. Read about it.

Pork
- Same as beef.

Alcohol
- In many countries, 1 in 3 people have some form of mental illness sometime in their lives. Alcohol helps a lot of people cope with society. How the hell do you think I cope with all the (50% of the population) sub-100 IQ zombies walking around?

Oil used for deep-frying
- Fat is not unhealthy. Cholesterol does not cause heart disease, nor is it a good predictor of those who will get heart disease. Only ~3% of arterial plague is cholesterol by composition - the vast majority is calcium. Vitamin D helps regulate calcium...this goes back to the tanning salons.

Gasoline -- especially because it gives people an incentive to WALK when they're going less than 2 miles to a store, instead of driving.
- I don't think the cost of gasoline has ever factored into a lazy persons decision of whether to walk. The burning of fossil fuels and the creation of air pollution is a national health hazard (akin to me walking up and dumping toxic waste on you) and so YES this should be taxed because pollution is a hidden cost of industry; but the funds shouldn't go to Medicare they should go to giant air-scrubbers which help de-pollute the air.

Coal
- Same as gas

Natural Gas
- Same as coal.

Sugar and High Fructose Corn Syrup, Junk Food in general, & Cigarettes
- Okay, maybe you have some kind of argument here because these are legitimately detrimental to your health, but only used in excess. So unless you find a way to tax "excess" or define "excess" I can't see an argument for taxing the stray cigarette or potatoe chip.

This is really a prime example of exactly what is wrong with "arbitrary law" and the government in general. One guy thinks he has all the answers (sorry jwray I know you mean well) but unfortunately he choses the wrong sources to base his science on, and he gets it completely wrong....instead of a bunch of laws which "help reduce our health care costs" we have a bunch of wasteful taxation which does the exact opposite.

Every idea sounds great when it springs forth from you brain...and I'll even admit jwray not even a couple years back I have made this exact argument: Tax alcohol and use it to fund liver transplants...tax cigarettes and use it to fund lung cancer treatment, etc. The reality is such taxes are anti-human; because a tax on a personal choice is passing judgment on the way someone choses to live their life - when it does not affect you in the slightest.

If someones personal choices affect your life, then yes, pass all the judgment you want, take them to court or call 911 but if I want to live on a farm in the middle of nowhere and buy a deep fryer, cigarettes, booze, soda, and potato chips from www.unhealthylifestyleproducts.com who are you to tack on perceived "healthcare costs" ?