Obesity Tax?

Gov. Paterson, as part of a $121 billion budget to be unveiled Tuesday, will propose an "obesity tax" of about 15% on nondiet drinks.

This means a Diet Coke might sell for a $1 - even as the same size bottle of its calorie-rich alter ego would go for $1.15.

Paterson's budget also calls for a 3% cut in education spending, a $620-a-year tuition hike at SUNY and a $600 increase at CUNY - and about $3.5 billion in health care cuts, a source said.

The Democratic governor will not call for a broad-based income tax boost, but he will push to restore the sales tax on clothing and footwear. - NY Daily News

Gotta love those damn liberals. Nawt

Yo, We Eating More, Yo!

In 1970, the average American ate about 16.4 pounds of food a week, or 2.3 pounds daily. By 2006, the average intake grew by an additional 1.8 pounds a week.

Among other things, that's an extra half pound of fat weekly - mostly from oils and shortening. That doesn't count the fat in the extra quarter pound of meat Americans now eat every seven days. Those fats were somewhat offset by a steep drop in dairy consumption, the only major food group to have a decline, primarily in milk drinking. (But we do love our cheese. More and more of it.)

This portrait of the raw ingredients of the American diet is based on what the Agriculture Department calls "food availability" - the amount of food produced for the average American consumer. The data are adjusted for food losses (waste on farms; in processing and transportation; and in stores, restaurants and homes) to provide a close approximation of what individuals eat. (The most recent year for which data are available is 2006.) - New York Times

Yo, this isn't obvious or anything.