Other Crap

Maine passes a tax of $4 per gallon on soft drinks

$4 bucks a gallon? That's three cents per ounce! A 12 pack of 12-oz cans contains 144 ounces, and a gallon is 128 ounces, so this tax should raise the price of that package by about $4.50. To put that into perspective, that entire package only costs three bucks in Texas when it's on sale, so that would be a 150% tax!

I think the article must be referring to a gallon of soft drink syrup concentrate, which would produce some five to seven gallons of actual drinks. (At least I hope that's what they mean.)

Maine has a quixotic universal health care program which is basically broke, so they need new taxes to pay for it. "Bill supporters in Augusta say beer, wine and soda have an impact on Mainer's' health, so it makes sense to tax those items to pay for health care."

You might argue that this is actually a fair way to provide universal health care since: (1) It makes the products which cause health problems pay for health care. (2) It makes the uninsured pay for their own policies. The same people who are uninsured also tend to be the heaviest consumers of cigarettes, cheap alcohol, and soft drinks, so in essence this is just a way to get them to use their own money to pay for insurance policies.

As a guy who doesn't smoke or drink, I have to like any plan where the government keeps its hands out of my pockets, but I have a feeling that these sorts of taxes will only be the first step in a desperate struggle to keep the plan from insolvency.