Things that are overpriced

Quote: Mission146

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; I think only four states apply to that---Alaska, Hawaii, Utah and Alabama. Of course, Alabama also has one of the lowest taxes on smokes.

Being pedantic, Alabama has a few tribals that are pretty decent size. They’re the class 2 or whatever that are “bingo slots.”

From "The Economist"

Quote:

MANY goverrments use “sin taxes” to dissuade people from smoking and drinking alcohol. In recent years, some lawmakers have turned their cross-hairs to a different vice: sugar. Obesity is on the rise all across the world. Forty per cent of Americans today are obese, up from around 15% in 1980. Several countries, along with a handful of American cities, have introduced taxes on sugary drinks in recent years. Their governments hope that these levies will both raise revenues and reduce how much sugar people consume. But do sin taxes even work?

Policymakers are right to think that sin taxes lead to lower consumption. The exact estimates vary from study to study, but economists have found that in general, a 1% increase in the price of tobacco or alcohol in America leads to a 0.5% decline in sales. In practical terms, this means that sales of tobacco and alcohol are more responsive overall to price changes than say, sales of many common household goods, such as coffee. Similarly, while it is still too early to determine whether these taxes will have any effect on obesity, studies have shown that they have at the very least reduced sales in Mexico, and the cities of Berkeley and Philadelphia.

https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2018/08/10/do-sin-taxes-work

Quote: rquiredusername

Being pedantic, Alabama has a few tribals that are pretty decent size. They’re the class 2 or whatever that are “bingo slots.”

That's true, but that's not a state interest.

In fact, it's specifically not a state interest. The Poarch Band of Indians almost came to a compact with the state that would allow them to have Class III ("Vegas-style") gambling, but the Governor, Kay Ivey, vetoed it. Had the compact come to fruition, as is the case in quite a few other states, Alabama would have gotten a piece of the revenues...but Alabama didn't want it.

For that reason, I would say the state can do any sin tax that they wish as the state, for the most part, doesn't seem to be profiting off of vices or things that can lead to addiction, on direct.

Alaska also has Native American bingo halls, which can sell pull tabs, a sort of independent,"Charity Lottery," and some Native American owned interests have a few, "Games of Skill," which the state may, or may not, do something about. They're considering it.

Another thing to mention is, pursuant to the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, Alabama couldn't do anything about what the tribes already do have even if it wanted to...which it probably would.

According to the American Heart Association, the amount of added sugar to foods needed for survival or health is Zero.

"Results Smoking was associated with a greater mean annual healthcare cost of €1600 per living individual during follow-up. However, due to a shorter lifespan of 8.6 years, smokers’ mean total healthcare costs during the entire study period were actually €4700 lower than for non-smokers. For the same reason, each smoker missed 7.3 years (€126 850) of pension. Overall, smokers’ average net contribution to the public finance balance was €133 800 greater per individual compared with non-smokers. "

The quote is from the BMJ and is a Finnish study that followed 1976 male smokers for 27 years. There is a net GAIN to society when you factor in the savings from health care and pensions when they die early.

Sugar has 2,854 calories per dollar as of the date of publication.

Calories are valuable because of the heat generated.

However, sugar has no protein.


There is no date on the doc but the relativity of food cost per calorie and per protein is important.

Flour is the cheapest per dollar for calories.

So if you're not obese and have to feed a large family, this could be a doc resource to go to.

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Calorie Per Dollar List
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https://efficiencyiseverything.com/calorie-per-dollar-list/

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Quote: kenarman

"Results Smoking was associated with a greater mean annual healthcare cost of €1600 per living individual during follow-up. However, due to a shorter lifespan of 8.6 years, smokers’ mean total healthcare costs during the entire study period were actually €4700 lower than for non-smokers. For the same reason, each smoker missed 7.3 years (€126 850) of pension. Overall, smokers’ average net contribution to the public finance balance was €133 800 greater per individual compared with non-smokers. "

The quote is from the BMJ and is a Finnish study that followed 1976 male smokers for 27 years. There is a net GAIN to society when you factor in the savings from health care and pensions when they die early.

One could probably find that all medical technologies that extend life by months or a few years are adding to total overall costs of living for everyone.

Quote: rxwine

From "The Economist"

https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2018/08/10/do-sin-taxes-work

Right?

So, let's look at this:

I'm doing this quickly, so I am just doing first links and accepting as true, for an example.

According to this:

https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/27/health/cigarette-smoking-decline/index.html#:~:text=The%20survey%20includes%20responses%20from,adults%20said%20they%20smoked%20cigarettes.&text=This%20is%20a%20significant%20drop,adults%20said%20they%20smoked%20cigarettes.

11% of the adult population of the United States smokes.

According to this:

https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2021/08/united-states-adult-population-grew-faster-than-nations-total-population-from-2010-to-2020.html#:~:text=In%202020%2C%20the%20U.S.%20Census,from%20234.6%20million%20in%202010.

258.3 million adults in the United States.

Ergo, about 28.413M smokers.

Let's say that every smoker is going to buy one pack of cigarettes. The Federal Government taxes cigarettes at $1.01/pack:

https://igentax.com/cigarette-tax-state/

Thus, each of these 28,413,000 smokers buying a pack of cigarettes results in $28,697,130 federal government revenue.

With that, we're going to up the tax to $1.02 and lose 0.5% of smokers:

(28413000 * .995) * 1.02 = $28,836,353.70

As we can see, the tax revenues go up, despite fewer people smoking.

The most likely people to quit are the poor, most probably, the working poor as a result of feeling priced out. Naturally, this is also the Federal Government, taken alone, and doesn't account for state taxes.

Of course, the states with the greatest percentage of smokers:

https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/smoking-rates-by-state

Also tend to have the lowest taxes on cigarettes, which you can compare to the other link. Specifically, of all of the top ten states for percentage of smokers, none of them charge $2.00/pack, or more, in taxes.

In revenue terms, the Federal Government is actually doing extremely well on those states and is, depending on how you look at it, fortunate that those states have such low taxes. When we look at states that are amongst the poorest:

Of the ten states with the highest percentage of smokers, the following is true:

https://wisevoter.com/state-rankings/poorest-states/#:~:text=Poorest%20States%20in%20the%20US,-The%20ten%20poorest&text=Mississippi%20is%20the%20poorest%20state,a%20poverty%20rate%20of%2016.8%25.

1.) Six of the ten states are also in the Top 10 for poverty rate.

2.) Every state of the ten is in the top half for poverty rate, with Indiana and Missouri being closest to the middle.

One thing that would not be beneficial to the Federal Government, at least from a revenue standpoint, would be for those states to increase the tax on cigarettes to $2.00/pack as one would suspect that a HUGE number of their smokers would be immediately priced out.

With that, it's really for each state and the Federal Government, from their perspectives, to balance maximizing revenues with getting people off of smoking. Like I said, from the Government's perspective, having fewer smokers (especially when the ones who quit tend to be poorer and also more likely to get some form of Government healthcare) while bringing in more tax revenues is win-win.

Unfortunately, for the states with the highest percentages of smokers, they really don't have that much room to increase the state tobacco taxes to benefit from having so many smokers because the Federal Government's tax is choking them out from doing so. There are quite a few states, believe it or not, that impose a lower (separate) tax on smoking than does the Federal Government. Of course, some of these states also have a state sales tax, so that could contribute to the overall tax rate on cigarettes being greater than the Federal Government's $1.01/pack tax.

For example, if a pack of cigarettes is $5 in Mississippi, but there is a state sales tax of 7%, then that's an extra $0.35 on cigarettes, which combined with the $0.68/pack, would result in a slightly higher total tax revenue (per pack) than the Federal Government gets.

Quote: kenarman

"Results Smoking was associated with a greater mean annual healthcare cost of €1600 per living individual during follow-up. However, due to a shorter lifespan of 8.6 years, smokers’ mean total healthcare costs during the entire study period were actually €4700 lower than for non-smokers. For the same reason, each smoker missed 7.3 years (€126 850) of pension. Overall, smokers’ average net contribution to the public finance balance was €133 800 greater per individual compared with non-smokers. "

The quote is from the BMJ and is a Finnish study that followed 1976 male smokers for 27 years. There is a net GAIN to society when you factor in the savings from health care and pensions when they die early.

I believe it, but most people are idiots who think there is some reason that people should live longer.