[AnthonyMouse]

> Knowing all of this, it makes perfect sense to tax the living crap out of highly processed foods that are made from subsidized ingredients.

The consequence of this would be that the subsidized food gets exported to a country that doesn't tax it, at which point you're subsidizing some other country's food.

The US is also a large net exporter of food, implying there is more than enough domestic production for wartime needs. Also, the US hasn't been in that kind of a war in almost a hundred years and MAD makes it unlikely that it ever would be again. The obvious conclusion is to eliminate the subsidies.

[pydry]

>The consequence of this would be that the subsidized food gets exported to a country that doesn't tax it, at which point you're subsidizing some other country's food.

If theyre smart they won't take this shit either.

Nice of you to let Americans sacrifice their health on $othercountry's behalf though.

[AnthonyMouse]

> If theyre smart they won't take this shit either.

What do you suppose the chances are of 100% of other countries imposing a similar tax on this type of food?

> Nice of you to let Americans sacrifice their health on $othercountry's behalf though.

Stop subsidizing it and you don't have to tax the subsidy back out.

[pydry]

>What do you suppose the chances are of 100% of other countries imposing a similar tax

Quite high. Agricultural dumping is typically frowned upon even more than regular dumping. Half of the reason for the WTO's existence was to get countries to stop being so trigger happy about doing this.

[AnthonyMouse]

You think the chances are "quite high" of all other countries doing this? There are several countries that inherently have to import food because they don't have enough arable land to feed their population.

[pydry]

Yeah, and they already buy plenty of shit food from America. They aren't going to buy more oreos to these countries just because America can't sell them to America any more.

[AnthonyMouse]

But of course they are, because the price of that food would go down. If it's still being produced because it's still being subsidized but Americans stop buying it because it's punitively taxed, where do you think it goes?

[jmvoodoo]

Don't disagree, but eliminating the subsidy is much more challenging politically than taxing junk food.

[AnthonyMouse]

Taxing junk food seems pretty challenging politically, considering that businesses hate it as you're taxing their junk food, conservative voters hate it as government nanny state, liberal academics hate it as a regressive tax and a thing that lessens support for actually removing the subsidies, and anyone paying the tax hates it as a tax they have to pay.

At least for removing the subsidies you only have to fight the businesses.