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A Tax on Coca-Cola and Pepsi 'Could Make Americans Thinner'
Levy could also wipe out budget deficits of most US states, says health advocacy group
The proposal from the Centre for Science in the Public Interest - a health advocacy group - follows the release of a study last week claiming budget-strapped states, including California, could raise $10bn (£6bn) a year by raising a tax of 7 cents on each can of Coke or similar sodas.
(Image: flckr Orin Zebest - Creative Commons) Twenty-five American states already tax fizzy drinks. The new study suggests that all states should be made to follow suit. The issue has been taken up by President Barack Obama, who has said in public statements that he believes too many children are drinking sugary drinks. Indeed Obama has said such a national tax could lower health expenditure.
The proposal is being bitterly opposed by the food industry and their lobby groups. "The tax code should not be used as a tool for social engineering. Nor should it be an instrument for penalising individuals' personal food choices - choices that some government officials find distasteful," J Justin Wilson, senior research analyst at the Centre for Consumer Freedom, told the Los Angeles Times.
"Taxing soda pop is another paternalistic policy idea, which holds that politicians and government regulators, rather than individual citizens, should decide every aspect of what, where and when we eat," he said.
"President Obama is exactly right when he says kids are drinking too much soda," said Michael Jacobson, executive director of the Centre for Science in the Public Interest. "Soda is dirt cheap and promotes expensive and debilitating diseases, which in turn run up health care costs at all levels of government."
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16 Comments so far
Show AllThis is so typical and hypocritical of the carb industry that pushes poison without conscience and don't expect to pay diddly squat for all the health issues created by the super consumption of something as soft drinks, really anything but soft.
Sugar is addictive! It has every bit of a reason to be taxed because what these creeps at the corporate 'soft drink' level are doing is making out like bandits while those 'soft junkies' become sick and sicker and then the public is snookered into paying for their health issues, so it should be taxed and more than what is recommended in this article.
Just another 'unfettered market' idea of making money at the expense of the public so if they want their sugar water, make em pay.
Yes sugar is addictive but unfortunately the HFCS they actually peddle in these beverages is much more addictive and harmful than simple sugar.
Better than the tax would be a environmentally sane return to the refillable deposit bottles shown in the picture.
The process of keeping the bottles and taking them back to the store would make consumption of all that sugar a more conscious act and probably reduct consumption while conserving resources and energy.
The US is the only industrialized country that doesn't use refillable deposit bottles for pop and beer.
But, whoo boy, the Coke and Pepsi executives would all freak out and have masive strokes (their last words would be socialism!!!") if deposit bottles were mandated by law, which come to think of it, would be another benefit of such laws.
Once again to refer to the sweetener used in the majority of food today as "sugar" is grossly misleading. The childhood obesity trend line tracks almost proportionally with HFCS consumption starting in the 1970s. Sugar is also a harmful substance but let's call it what it is.
Since this is a money issue there is also taxing of prostitution, marijuana, bullets, churches and the top 1% of the people that have 95% of the money.
Dadgummit, I forgot, this is a christian country and we just can't allow any of that and I believe they have discovered that instead of wine, jesus and his disciples were actually drinking coke and pepsi so that can't be taxed either.
Ok, so someone has to tell me about this Guardian/UK. Why don't they worry abt the british nanny state instead? I keep seeing articles about the how bad the US is in it.
As much as I don't like lobbyists the guy is right: "Taxing soda pop is another paternalistic policy idea, which holds that politicians and government regulators, rather than individual citizens, should decide every aspect of what, where and when we eat"
I guess CSPI never heard about the concept of personal responsability.
No one is deciding what the citizen should drink. No one is proposing outlawing the stuff. But it is gerarally agreed that the price of something should reflect it's externalized impact on public health and the environment. Market forces fail miserably with this regard, so tax policy to address externalities is perfectly resonable. It is NOT an individual choice, obesity and poor health impose public and private insurance expenses on us all.
Also, such taxes can offset more general, and often regressive, sales, income tax, or real-estate taxes - which affect everyone. so a pop tax seems like simple fairness to me.
Also, there is a political doability factor. In my county, a 10% tax (now cut to 7%) was imposed on poured drinks and 6 packs to go in bars and restaurants, to support our endangered public transit system. Businesses groups spent hugh amounts trying to defeat it through a classic astroturf campaign. (They were even ordering waiters to bring petetions to peoples tables) Fortunately, they failed. The only other alternative would have been increasing the real-estate tax. Which would have been fairer? Yes, I drink expensive beer and gladly pay the tax to support public transit.
I undersatnd what you are saying and you are right in a way.
However, I like my Pepsi with my lunch and sometime I eat crappy stuff. I walk or jog with my dog 3mi (that's 5kn for Canadians) twice a day so I don't put on weight. So I look at all the fatsoes eating the same thing I do and think: "why should I be punished for their gluttony?"
Also, those are probably the same people using up most of the health tax dollars.
My point is, don't punish everyone, punish a lifestyle.
sorry man, just because you exercise and keep the weight off doesn't mean that crappy "food" isn't having an effect on your body and won't catch up with you later in life
Take for example the many people who are fit in every way until they discover that they have adult onset diabetes
Just say NO to corporate food
So I guess they have to plans to tax Diet Soda? Fine then, tax that corn syrupy crap!
Under the very regressive tax system in Tennessee, the current Memphis sales tax on on FOOD (including soft drinks) is nearly 10%. An additional excise tax of 7 cents per can would about double the gross tax percentage.
This increase would hardly be noticeable to higher income people but it will be significant to the lower income brackets who, demographically, will be carrying the bulk of the cost.
The folks in the upscale neighborhoods haven't noticed. They drink designer water and prestige wine, easily afforable after the Bush tax cuts for their income bracket, not to mention the complete absence of an income tax in Tennessee.
And the sales pitch is: the poor folks will be healthier so they won't miss the health insurance they can't afford.
This reminds me of the wave of lawsuits by states attorneys general that collected gazillions from tobacco companies to compensate for the costs of caring for smokers' bad health. The states and the lawyers got huge paydays but I have yet to hear of a single smoker getting a single dollar's worth of care from those funds. I guess it all went the way of the TARP funds; down the black hole owned and operated by the dispicable bastards we pay to lead the greatest nation on earth.
Pausing now to vomit.
Taxes are not the way to improve this, the glut is systemic
What's needed is "consumer education" (what an awful term) so that more people start to understand the huge impact drinking this stuff has on the human body, not to mention the impact putting most things sold in America has on the body.
Only then might some people decide for themselves that it's time to break out of this corporate matrix.
Remember, the Romans loved to brew up a tasty beverage in lead pots and sure enough many of them became sterile. I think obesity can have the same effect, no?
How a tax on high fructose corn syrup instead?
Hey don't tax my pure cane sugar coca-cola from mexico. It is already very expensive. Ok, the truth is I'm totally addicted.
To paraphrase Marie Ann Twinnet: " Let them drink Kool-Aid "
"The tax code should not be used as a tool for social engineering..."
No. let's continue to let ADVERTISING do all our social engineering. More advertising please - and while you're at it Congress could we please have more subsidizing of CORN SYRUP with my tax dollars. Cut education, but I ain't paying more than a buck for a 44 ounce BIG GULP.
Cargill is God.