The Cost Of The Soda Tax

Sugar addiction is a problem that has been in our society for many years. In today's world this type of addiction is being composed into drinks. Sugary drinks are found everywhere from local stores, to in home refrigerators. Sodas, juices, and energy drinks, all fall under unhealthy remedies to thirst. Sugar addiction can only restrain us from accomplishing healthy goals in life. Sugary drinks can lead to harming one's body. Over the past few years, many cities and states have considered taxing sodas and other sugary beverages. Sugary drinks must be tax due to its unhealthy components and addiction.

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.

The soda industry has been influential since its breakthrough such as companies like Coca-Cola “giving money to and maintaining a cozy relationship with the Global Energy Balance Network, a nonprofit that promoted exercise over diet to combat obesity, the financial relationship between soda companies and public health groups have been scrutinized” (Blackmore). The city of San Francisco is bringing back the soda tax proposition which will add 2 cents on soda per ounce. Last time around it wasn’t as successful only getting half of the votes when they needed, at least, seventy-five percent. This time around they will only need the half of votes they got the last time. San Franciscan's should pass the soda tax because it would discourage people

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

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

This got me thinking, so I challenged my mom and was chagrined when she said "Take a look at Berkeley, and why they passed the first Soda Tax in America"

That’s what life’s all about?” (Stone, 287). In 2012, the Mayor of New York made a ridiculous law to restrict soda over the size of sixteen ounces. The choice of what size of soda a person could chose won't be an option anymore. Although, the soda ban can limit the exponentially growing rate of obesity it is unjust to the people of America because it limits freedom, lacks real restriction and opens doors to other prohibiting laws.

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.

I already stated in questions one above the New York City limitation on the size of sodas has the same constitutional issues with the Philadelphia “Soda Tax”, both are unconstitutional even the major justified that it will be to promote better health of the population of New York, no law can really dictate what people has to put in their body. The tax is discriminatory as it only targeted on big sodas. The only difference between the two is that the New York City limitation on the size of sodas is not to raise any revenue and there was no tax per size or ounce while the Philadelphia “ soda Tax “ is mainly to boost the state revenue.

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.

The article on sugary drinks and soda by Caitlin Dewey, discusses the alarming rate that sugar consumption has been on recently (Dewey 2017). The Journal by The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition clearly analyzed the original article, and even broke down in details what's really happening to society, and not just reporting on it like the article by Dewey (Kit, Fakhouri, Park, Nielsen, Ogden 2013). Although it sugar based beverage consumption is fortunately still on a decline, it wasn’t until recently that it was discovered we have begun to back track the progress we’ve made up to this point. There are several possible explanations on why this has happened. From the lifestyle the sugar consumer has, to the

A major argument in favour of enacting a sugary drinks tax is its potential of reducing death, disability,

“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.

The idea of a tax influencing consumerism in the US, especially on food, a basic necessity of life, may be questionable. Even more so since an UFT has failed more times than it has succeeded in the US, according to previous attempts. In the US alone, “soda tax proposals…. Have failed in New York State, San Francisco – and Philadelphia, twice” (Sanger-Katz 1). Statistically speaking, of the attempts of exercising a soda tax in US cities and states with

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