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Unless you are referring exclusively to sin taxes, I have to disagree with that. By taxing my income at progressively higher rates, are they trying to discourage me from working more? Do high sales taxes encourage me to buy more?

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That's the reason the taxes aren't even higher. They want to find a level that will still make it worth your while to work hard for which presumably they have.

Lower sales taxes do as Ogie has pointed out about his amazing state.

There is no "correct" level for any tax. It's a combination of getting enough money to be able to function along with keeping it low enough to encourage behaviors such as "hard work" and spending. As many people are saying, the lower taxes of other places are "encouraging" them to move. If everyone paid the same taxes all around the country then things would be a lot different.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

People need to stop complaining.

Sugar tax- simple, don't drink pop and other sugary crap. With childhood obesity and diabetes rates, I feel no sympathy for higher soda prices. I drink about a 12-pack or so of Coke or so a year.

Water bottle tax- get a water filter and a reusable water bottle. You save money in the long run and it tastes just as good. Besides, something like 80% of all water bottles end up in landfills and you're not using oil to make the PET bottles or trucks to transport it.

Done and done.

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Lay off that whiskey and let that cocaine be.

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You never miss your wealth, till your well went dry
Seem like only yesterday, you were here smiling
Now you gone away, but I know you in a better place
No traces of you, what can I do?
Alone and confused

That sure is a clever reply!

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Lay off that whiskey and let that cocaine be.

Unfortunately not as clever as you saying "don't drink pop and other sugary crap"

Do you think the answer to everything is having the government get involved in mismanaging more of my money?

_________________
You never miss your wealth, till your well went dry
Seem like only yesterday, you were here smiling
Now you gone away, but I know you in a better place
No traces of you, what can I do?
Alone and confused

I think this is going to be what gets people voted out of office -- now any sort of restaurant shutdown or grocery store layoffs can be attributed (rightly or wrongly) to this tax, and you can start putting faces on your TV ads. You can't do that for someone not getting heart disease... maybe you can show a weight loss thing, but public opinion on this is not likely to switch to pro-tax any time soon. All of this grandstanding that it is for the health of people is ridiculous -- the people most at risk for health issues are likely ones that are on SNAP and for some reason they are exempt from this?

I saw another Tribune article that said they were hoping to make $80 million in taxes this year, but the July shutdown cost them $20 million. These dollar amounts don't make any sense either... that isn't helping the cause.

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"All crowds boycotting football games shouldn't care who sings or takes a knee because they aren't watching." - Nas

That was enacted as a statewide law. If this had been a statewide law, it makes more sense, as most people don't live close enough to the border of the state to make up for it. You're probably not going to be driving 100 miles to the border to go to a bar you can smoke in.

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"All crowds boycotting football games shouldn't care who sings or takes a knee because they aren't watching." - Nas

This:


Where does it stop next? Drive thru tax? Anything over "X" amount of calorie tax? ABV >6% tax?

_________________
You never miss your wealth, till your well went dry
Seem like only yesterday, you were here smiling
Now you gone away, but I know you in a better place
No traces of you, what can I do?
Alone and confused

I know plenty of bars in Illinois that will still let you smoke in.

_________________
You never miss your wealth, till your well went dry
Seem like only yesterday, you were here smiling
Now you gone away, but I know you in a better place
No traces of you, what can I do?
Alone and confused

If the goal is to meet the budget, why not reduce the budget?

Instagram-checking tax (since checking Instagram is supposedly correlated with anxiety)

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There are a great many bars in Chicago that openly ignore the smoking ban. I dont think the city/county is going to be as forgiving towards convenience stores trying to skate this tax.

Sane thoughts are not welcome in the county government, sir.

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"All crowds boycotting football games shouldn't care who sings or takes a knee because they aren't watching." - Nas

The difference between this and smoking is two-fold

1: smoking impacts more than just the smoker via second hand smoke
2: the smoke filled air at a bar probably kept more non-smokers away. I know that I avoided bars where smoking was allowed as the smoke irritates my eyes.

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“When I walked in this morning, and saw the flag was at half mast, I thought 'alright another bureaucrat ate it.'" - Ron Swanson

I think this tax will be short lived. A new county government will be elected on a platform of repealing this tax.

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“When I walked in this morning, and saw the flag was at half mast, I thought 'alright another bureaucrat ate it.'" - Ron Swanson

Also, drinking pop doesn't make you look cool

The point is that people said the same thing about the smoking ban and bars are still thriving. Are we to believe that bars are going to struggle because a rum and coke gets an 8 cent tax on it?

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

I'm not talking about bars here. I'm talking about grocers and C-Stores, and yes the data from Philadelphia (the only other large city adopter of such a tax) says this is exactly what happens.

The grocers and C-Stores had to lay off workers and the tax revenues fell millions short of expectations as buyers crossed into jurisdictions with no tax. As I also mentioned, on such trips a buyer is likely to do a full shopping trip so a $200 grocery trip in Cook County ends up being spend entirely in Lake County or DuPage County.

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“When I walked in this morning, and saw the flag was at half mast, I thought 'alright another bureaucrat ate it.'" - Ron Swanson

I'm not trying to be combative, but you responded to something I said in response to "restaurants and taverns".

The smoking ban didn't hurt grocery and convenience stores either.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

I would agree that the restaurants and bars will not be adversely effected as it adds pennies to the sales there.

That isn't the case when we're talking about the retail side of this.

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“When I walked in this morning, and saw the flag was at half mast, I thought 'alright another bureaucrat ate it.'" - Ron Swanson

It might. The thing is that was already true. Cook County already had a higher sales tax. If you are that price conscious but also a huge soda drinker you already should have been leaving the county to shop.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Just like the bottled water tax and the red light camera tickets, this will fall woefully short of the "expected" revenue generation. Nothing will be solved because of it.

More of the same.

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Agreed, well stated.

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You rubes are missing the point. You don't drink soda, so the tax is fine. The point is that rather than cutting spending, revamping pensions, putting an end to corruption, the band aid on a broken leg fix is raise taxes. The Government should not be doing this. But they are, and because they are taxing the thing you don't use, that makes it ok.

As soon as they hit you on a property tax bill or something else that you "use," you are the type of people that are screaming bloody murder for impeachments, reforms, and other fixes. All the while it was happening right under your noses, and you didn't do a fucking thing about it.

If it was really about health, the tax would be 200%. If it was really about helping to balance budgets, the tax would be more manageable like a nickel on a 12pack and a dime on a 24pack so as not to scare people into buying these drinks outside of Cook County.

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Cook County had a higher tax, but it may have been negligible depending upon the purchase.

Now when you add a penny per ounce to an item which is often purchased in bulk, it really can add to a purchase and thus this tax tips the scales for people who may not have been crossing county lines previously.

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“When I walked in this morning, and saw the flag was at half mast, I thought 'alright another bureaucrat ate it.'" - Ron Swanson

You have to drink a huge amount of soda for this to matter to pretty much anyone.

Let's say you drink 16 ounces of soda a day. That's 16 cents a day or $4.80 a month.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Theme song of Cook County and the State of Illinois.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8OgkjcW0g4

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“When I walked in this morning, and saw the flag was at half mast, I thought 'alright another bureaucrat ate it.'" - Ron Swanson

Supporting these taxes does not mean that you're against cutting spending, revamping pensions, and putting an end to corruption.

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Lay off that whiskey and let that cocaine be.