Persuasive Essay On Soda Tax

As an attempt to reduce the rising obesity and obesity-related disease rates, Mayor Bloomberg of New York City has proposed a ban on soft drinks larger than 16 oz. According to an infographic created by the Huffington Post, extra large soft drinks have accounted for an average of 301 extra calories in people’s diets across the US. Although measures need to be put into place to improve the unhealthy diets and lifestyles of many Americans, a ban on large soft drinks is not the solution. The ban on soda would be an ineffective attempt at reducing obesity and obesity-related diseases, as well as an infringement of civil liberties and an attack on businesses in New York City.

To start off the soda ban of New York is a terrible idea and will cost more money to instate than leaving the intake of soda the way it is. This is proven in an info-graphic given by graph paper diaries in which a child is speaking to governmental leaders about teaching them basic math, before they try and educate the population on health priorities. Now someone might disagree with this argument

Their advertisement proclaimed that all they wanted to do was “protect their Freedom of Choice.” “This is New York City; no one tells us what neighborhood to live in or what team to root for,” says the narrator, as Yankees and Mets fans shout in the background. (Grynbaum, 2012). Since May 30 when Bloomberg wanted to ban the sale of soft drinks over 16 ounces in regulated food establishments such as movie theaters and sport arenas. Senator Frank R. Lautenberg, a New Jersey Democrat, recommended there be a federal study linking together sugary beverages and obesity. “The talking points are ‘Nanny State,’ that it won’t work, because people will just buy as much as they ever would, and that this disproportionately hurts the poor,” said Kelly Brownell, director of the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University. (Grynbaum, 2012). People that are not middle or low class would buy as much soda as they wanted and the rest of the people would be stuck with whatever drink is leftover. The lower class minority groups seem to always get the shorter end of the stick and in most cases unless a big group of them get together their voices will not be heard. The mayor or the city council should not have the right to tell you what size soda to drink or what kind of soda to drink; We live in The United States of America and there is no law that says anything about a specific size or flavor of soda so until that day comes nobody should

On October 11th, 2016 Cook County, which includes the city of Chicago passed a one cent per ounce soda tax. Due to a lawsuit by the Illinois Merchant Association the new law did not even come into effect until August 2nd 2017. Now, due to a repeal, the law will cease to be in effect by December 1st, giving this law an effective life of about four months. The tax seems a no brainer with about 25% of United States boys and girls suffering from obesity. However the law had two major shortcomings. First, it had a bad start due to a poor implementation of the tax, since the tax was originally levied on producers instead of at the point of sale. This caused what is known as a double tax situation, soda companies were being charged two taxes in

However, the soda ban is not the best way to regulate people’s health because they can still buy as much soda as they want. According to “Three Cheers for the Nanny State” it states, “After all, people can still buy as much soda as they want” (Conly, 277). The soda ban should not be placed because there is really no point in doing

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,

Although this may be true, the soda ban “... produces a false sense of accomplishment in the fight against obesity” (Gross,1). In brief, the soda ban won’t reduce the ever-growing obesity rate in America. After all their are other contributors that damage America’s health. Without delay, this law gives the thought of the U.S. becoming forcefully controlled by the government. As described by Sidney Anne Stone “ It starts here and it will spread throughout the nation..before you know it, it won’t be the “land of the free and home of the brave”...we are all going to wake up in the land of “Big Brother” with a list of things we can and cannot do, eat, drink, say, and so on, and we’ll be wondering how we got there. Well, this is how”(Stone,288). For this reason the soda ban devices those who may agree with the law. If more bans or laws like this one were to occur, the U.S. would become what it hates.Overall, the ban may bring a horrid future for

This memo is an application of some of the policy ideas Cass Sunstein has described in his book “Simpler,” to a proposed “soda tax” in Oakland California. The introduction of the tax, contained in “Measure HH” (as it appears on the ballot) has been met with stiff opposition by some members of the Oakland area while others have embraced the idea. Three ideas from “Simpler” will be tested in this California case.

If done right the political side would be able to use this accurately, however it is not done right. The tax shouldn't be enforced because of the way obesity isn't drastically improved upon from these taxes. The people who don't want to pay high prices have alternatives available to them, so the taxes stopping obesity proves useless. The alternatives are going to be more tempting when consumers see the prices of the taxed drinks and still be consuming drinks that may not be healthy. This, on top of the political eye of the situation, are reasons that the tax can't be helpful to stop obesity; one of the main claims to stop the taxes being to stop obesity. Further support of this being that author Brian Gale points in his article, "What the Soda Tax Means for Consumers" that even with the drink's taxes reducing how much is being consumed, it is uncertain if it's changing the consumers' choices of unhealthy drinking choices. It is undeniable that gauging every singe persons drinking and health choices will prove difficult based solely on the taxing of sugary beverages, especially with the idea of multiple variables having an influence on the drinking habits of every

To begin with, the article, “Philadelphia’s Soda Tax Bust” is based on Philadelphia's soda tax made earlier this year, the purpose of the tax was to finance universal pre-K education as well as prevent child obesity within the city. Although

By carefully analyzing and breaking down the soda tax with considerations to all of Kass’s criteria, it can be determined that the soda tax passes all of the ethical considerations that are relevant to public health, and is thus ethically sound.

“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