Damien's Response: The Taxing Of Sugary Drinks

In 2009, a prestigious think tank in Washington, D.C. proposed a 10% tax on what they called “Fattening food of little nutritional value.” They stated that based on their study, such a tax could raise 500 billion dollars in tax revenue over 10 years, which could be put towards paying off America's ever expanding national debt (Waist). Americans spend an extremely disproportional amount of money on health care costs related to lifestyle diseases. In recent years, Americans spent $190 billion on healthcare related to obesity, which is over one-fifth of total annual healthcare spending (Baird). Because Americans would have more money to spend, a tax on fattening foods and beverages could promote economic growth for private businesses and an increase in revenue for the

Obesity and diabetes are diseases affected by poor diet. These health problems, caused by overdrinking sugary drinks are increasing the health care cost paid. Public funds are used to pay these cost through Medicare and Medicaid. Some people insist that these drinks should carry a higher tax to keep people from consuming and also to help cover medical cost. But these companies have battled hard against this , saying their products are being singled out unfairly.Some people argue that taxing sugary drinks won’t decrease the rate of obesity and even change the consumer behavior. However, studies have shown that increasing the price for sugary drinks have actually reduce purchase and also drop the rates of diabetes and obesity.

According to the WHO (World Health Organization) the health of the people in the United States has not always been the greatest. With an obesity rate of 33.9 percent, which translates into over 106 million obese Americans, this has caused many problems to arise and impact the daily lives of Americans. Many have tried to help in regards to this issue by improving school foods or attempting to encourage more physical activity. Unfortunately, these may have helped but only in a small scale. However, a fellow at the Union of Concerned Scientists, Mark Bittman believes that he may have a definitive solution. On May 25, 2016, in “Taxing Sugar to Fund a City” New York Times food journalist, Mark Bittman, by using the taxing of sugary beverages in Philadelphia - America’s poorest big city - earnestly

Consumers think that it is awful that they have to pay for someone else’s health care while that person may just as well be drinking twelve cans of soda daily and continually destroying their health. (“Should there be a”, n.d.) These consumers are hoping the soda tax will encourage people to stop abusing soda and at the same time lowering the obesity rate in our country, which now about 66% of our population. Some commenters also said that the government is doing the right thing to try and stop this

“Soda Taxes: Gaining Steam or Getting Steamrolled?” is an enticing article by Anna Gorman that focuses on the issue of taxing sugary beverages and the effect it will ultimately have on the health of the general population. She mentions that the tax could reduce the rates of obesity and diabetes in the affected areas. She also points out the counter to this claim, that soda taxes may not have any effect on obesity rates at all and may give the government too much power over the consumer choice. Overall, she seems to advocate that soda is an unhealthy beverage and should be cut down among consumers. Soda however, is not the only unhealthy options out there. There is a plethora of products on the shelves of supermarkets and sold at restaurants.

The debate on weather sugary drinks, especially soda, should be taxed or not has been a topic for years. Some people believe that they should be taxed for the improvement of health while on the other hand some people think that taxing the drinks won't do much and actually hurt people. Taxing sugary drinks is helpful to those who have a hard time with temptation for the drinks. In the article "Do Soda Taxes Really Work?" Sifferlin states that when researchers looked at Berkeley residents, they found that when taxing soda started "sales of sugary-sweetened drinks fell by close 10% and sales of water increased in Berkeley by about 16%" (4) Just by the percent difference rasing prices on soda made people decide against buying the sweet drinks,

For starters,if you do tax soda is will not effective some people.If you do add taxes to soda it obesity won’t end.Also if you add taxes to soda people will not make any better choices and also since people won’t make better choices people can find other stuff that they will enjoy and then they have to tax that as well until everything is taxed.People can find other sugary drinks if they tax soda.People can just buy energy drinks that does not taste bad and they can just drink that instead of soda if they tax soda.

Firstly, taxes on sodas would decrease the consumption of soda. People would think twice before buying a soft drink if there was an increased tax on carbonated beverages. They may choose bottles of water with a cheaper price. When people don’t spend on carbonated beverages, the consumption of soda would decrease. According to a survey of Powell et at., suggested that a 20% increase in price would reduce consumption by 25%. As a result, it would break the link between the consumption of soda and obesity. It also encourages the consumption of healthier beverages, such as water, vegetable drinks, etc. If people consume fewer sodas, in particular, they would have better health conditions as well as lower obesity rate. Therefore, these taxes would decrease the obesity rate in our country.

Obesity and diet related disease like diabetes are one of the biggest challenges today in America. The situation continues to worsen every day; obesity becomes a serious health crisis. Cities like Philadelphia and Berkeley, California, are sounding the bell of danger by imposing a tax on the consumption of soda and sugary beverages to cutback sugar consumption; which is a major contributor to the obesity epidemic. Some people say that tax on soda and sugary drinks aren’t beneficial to society and don’t generate any positive effect on public health. Others say that it is a powerful weapon against the obesity epidemic invading the American population. I agree with the later. Taxes on sugary

One of the biggest health concerns facing children in the United States to is childhood obesity. Childhood obesity has grown to become a major epidemic all across the nation effecting millions of children both physically and emotionally. One of the biggest contributors to this public health issue is sugar sweetened beverages. Sugar-sweetened beverages are an unregulated and out control beverages that is being consumed by millions of children each and every day. Progress is being made on the local level to treat and control this concern, but in order to truly make a difference a federal policy needs to be implemented. This federal policy needs to tax sugar-sweetened beverages to encourage consumer to make healthier and cheaper choices. A federal

If the idea was to get people to not drink the these beverages as much as we are used to then a tax would be going at it all wrong. It would be a better idea to have more marketing or information about the benefits of limiting their sugary drink intake. I don’t even think I have ever seen an ad or service announcement about not drinking soda. Everything shown to us is to encourage us to go to the store and pick up the pack of soda or a huge bottle of gatorade. But there are ads against smoking and drinking shown all the time. Ads are about awareness and are an easier approach to the public because it’s a win-win (Clemmit). These companies don’t lose customers to high taxes and the public learn some of the health issues that come with most of the products. If we were going to put the same taxes on sugary drinks they would have to be treated the same. “If you want to tax the hell out of soda, then you need to make people think that’s a drug, not a beverage - that downing a Coke is just like puffing on a cigarette (Engber 641).

In addition, this tax for soda makes people healthier and stronger. Sometimes it also gets people that

With a growing epidemic of obesity in America, some states and lawmakers have resorted to taking unconventional measures in order to counter the growing issue. Many legislators are debating the effectiveness of a “fat tax” would be on limiting the consumption of soda, high fat foods, and high sugar foods, and ultimately reducing the rate of morbidity and mortality due to obesity. The idea is that long term consumption of high fat, high sugar foods and drinks lead to many health problems, so making them more expensive and less accessible should decrease the health issues related to their consumption.

“Sin” taxes have been proven as a way to curtail known unhealthy behaviors. Soda taxes are most accepted if taxes collected are earmarked for health specific programs (Chaufin et al., 2010). The cons are the consumers are the voters and taxing may equate to loss of votes, taxing may not be equitable to individuals that do not have the disease, and finally, an undue burden may be placed on lower socio-economic demographics as these groups often have limited access to food vendors that primarily sale what would be considered taxed foods. Though these sin taxes are proven to work well with tobacco and alcohol consumption, altering a persons’ diet needs to be more individualized and realistically approached. Lower socio-economic individuals should not feel added burden as a tax; which would be a negative impact (Kuchar et al., 2005). Legality issues are regarded as low, but would require state government support to enact. This would likely not be popularly accepted and have a minimal impact for any increase in tax rate.

Considering that soft drinks are one of the most popular drinks to a lot of people all around the world, unfortunately, a lot of them love to drink it almost every day and may not live without it. Soda becomes addictive, preventing one from drinking what the body needs the most which is water. In the market, there is a infinite amount of choices with multiple varieties of flavors, different tastes, ranges from classic soda to diet soda. However, consumers do not recognize clearly the negative effect of soft drinks that have a high chance of eroding their health away. Some of these examples include dental erosion, energy intake, obesity and other health issues. Nowadays, people live a healthy life to avoid health problems, so taxes on soft