Local News Comments

Sure! WHY NOT!!! Lets give more money to the state to hide, confiscate and spend on other projects. Can anyone remember how the Lotto was sold?!?

Why can't government trust people to take care of themselves.

This will be good if taxing it makes it ineligible for food stamp purchase

Which is more ridiculous, taxing sodas to 'fight obesity' or taxing ammo to fight 'gun violence'?

Which is more ridiculous, taxing DIET COKES to 'fight obesity' or using the money to purchase breakfast and lunches for children of illegal aliens?

Whatever happened to not raising taxes on those making less then $250,000 per year? This is yet another example of the multitude of taxes and fees imposed on working Americans by the Democrats.

The tax and spend Democrats are once again showing thier true colors

Sure soda can cause you to become obese but so does that burger you eat for lunch everyday. We already pay taxes to fund these programs for schools. Just like we already pay taxes to employ CalFire and look what we were just hit with to help "fund" them and pay for them to be dispatched to a fire. And might I add that 3.6 million dollars that just showed up outside of the general fund.

These are the same people who believe that is how the money will be used.. DEMOCRATS

Heavily tax sodas loaded with High Fructose Corn Syrup IE: the new Corn Sugar just like cigarettes should be heavily taxed too and alcohol. How much in state Medi-Cal health care costs are attributed to cigarette smoking? How much in health care and deaths per year are attributed to alcohol? Put high taxes on all of them to compensate what the state pays out yearly it could be spending on better things like infrastructure, roads, bridges, law enforcement, early childhood education, disability services and more.

Taxing soda is only the beginning because soda is not the only thing that causes obsety. Snack foods, fast foods, fatty meats, and bakery items also cause obesity. Low income people who cannot afford expensive healthy food have limited choices as to what kinds of food they can eat. I don't think taxing soda is the answer because people will still buy it. Education as to heathly food choices may be more helpfull. Doctors should be more involved in helping overweight people lose weight by providing them with nutrition information and if need so, refer them to a dietitian. More taxes gives the government more money to put in the general fund which usually isn't spent what it was intended for.

The real problem here is not sugary sodas or sports drinks. The real problem is CALORIES. Calories are ultimately what causes weight gain. Therefore we should tax calories. Who's in!!!???? I mean do we really want to fight obesity or not? Calorie tax!

Actually, now that I think about it, why don't we save ourselves the hassle and just ban all food and drinks entirely? Now that would have a 100% success rate, guaranteed!

...Yeah, that's what I thought, we don't really want to stop obesity, we just want to justify another tax while giving unqualified parents an excuse for allowing their "Poor children" to become obese in the first place.

Thank you.

Reducing obesity is not the goal of taxing soda. It's just the excuse. Sucking more money out of our pockets in every way possible is the goal.
Keep voting Democrat Y'all, all this taxing and spending is obviously working so well for California.

Come on! Its for the children!
LOVE! LOVE!

Enough new taxes already!!

LUDICROUS!!!!

I'm amazed that some people actually think that letting the government tell them what they can eat is ok ? My God people have we really gotten so dependant on Big Brother that you are willing to let them make a law that says you can't supersize your Big Mac Meal? What is going to become of The United States if this type of thinking continues ??

or better yet, stop the government from giving the corn farmers money as well as allowing corn fructose syrup to be put in almost all the foods on the grocery shelves today. look at labels and you will see.

It's only the beginning , get used to it !!

If you can't see the problem of obesity on our society and economy, and how its worse than cigarettes are/were... you need to read a book or twelve. Look up the associated costs of: depression, prescriptions, healthcare, wasted resources, etc.

For the record, its not "just calories", studies show the effects of the chemicals in diet soda's and other "low calorie" foods and drinks. These chemicals fool your brain and cause us to intake more than we normally would, and some are even carcinogens.

Tell me how its essential for low income folks to afford soda and junk food and why we shouldn't encourage the market to produce more high quality food to bring the costs down on healthy foods. Again, read! low income folks can afford healthy food and... drink water!

Chris Caldwell

WEll does that apply to diet soda? I like a cold soda but it is always diet

No Fruity control yourself and dont depend on others to make sure you are eating right!I dont have a weight problem and never will,I take care of myself,and enjoy a soda every now and then.I shouldnt be punished for people that cant put the Twinkie down!!

No one is being forced to buy soda. Man, Repub's today almost sound like the hippies in the 60's and 70's.

Obesity is only the tip of the iceberg. The real issue is the large number of associated illnesses that result from it - diabetes, heart conditions, arterial inflammation, all kinds of unpleasant stuff. And as long as public funds are being used to treat these illnesses, I say yes, we should be taxing foods that cause them. Sugar and corn syrup are by far the biggest culprits, and you have to be out of your mind to consume either of them to excess. I don't understand why people can't get this stuff into their heads - have we all been brainwashed so much into accepting these artificial foods that we can't stop consuming them?

Instead of taxing the soda and food, we need to tax the straw and the fork because that is the obvious reason Americans are obese. The straw and the fork causes is to be fat, not the high calories....

spot on fruity pebbles. Corn makes the world go round. Monsanto PATENTED life, aka their genetically modified corn. Small time farmers are legally criminals and can have their farm stripped from them if one Monsanto GMO corn is found on their field. The wind naturally carries seeds onto their fields, yet farmers are being treated as if they intentionally grew Monsanto seeds. Look up the Monsanto controversy folks.
Corn is involved in almost all foods: Absorbic acid, caramel, baking powder, cellulose, citrate, citric acid, dextrose, "natural/artifical flavors", iodized salt, malic acid, saccharin, MSG,xanatham gum, maltrodextrin, xylitol and soribitol to name a few.

thanks for the back up ez...i totally forgot about the evil empire of monsanto...it is truely evil what is going on....
on so many different levels...get educated folks and take our food system back from monsanto.