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Soda Tax: It’s the Real Thing
As calls mount for soda to be taxed because of its link to the nation's obesity epidemic, Coca-Cola CEO Muhtar Kent tried this week to tar the tax as socialist, taking a page from the Republicans single-word playbook against health care reform, bailouts, and even President Obama's back-to-school speeches.
Kent told the Rotary Club of Atlanta that proposals to tax sugary drinks and trash food were "outrageous'' because "I've never seen it work where a government tells people what to eat and what to drink.'' Kent added, "If it worked, the Soviet Union would still be around.''
Kent is clearly worried because Obama, in the current issue of Men's Health, said soda taxes should be explored. "There's no doubt that our kids drink way too much soda,'' Obama said. "And every study that's been done about obesity shows that there is a high correlation between increased soda consumption and obesity.''
Obama acknowledged that taxes would be resisted by the soda industry and their political enablers. But he said, "If you wanted to make a big impact on people's health in this country, reducing things like soda consumption would be helpful.''
It is ironic for Coca Cola to complain about Big Brother when the company has so thoroughly brainwashed the world. Coke and the other soft drink makers (this includes sports/energy drinks) have seduced Americans to double their daily intake of calories from sugar water since the late 1970s, fueling a tripling of obesity among youth 12 to 19, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In saying he wants to double the global servings of Coke products to over 3 billion a day by 2020, Kent boasted to the Rotary Club of a new $200 million investment in a plant in communist Vietnam!
In further hypocrisy, Kent spoke loftily of the average life expectancy increasing by five years by 2020 because of advanced medicine and biotech. Never mind the 2005 report in the New England Journal of Medicine that warned that unchecked obesity trends could slash up to five years off American life expectancy, the first sustained drop in modern times.
This has medical experts calling for taxes on soft drinks and trash food. No less than the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies this month recommended "a tax strategy to discourage consumption of foods and beverages that have minimal nutritional value, such as sugar-sweetened beverages.'' The Institute also recommended steps echoing those taken against tobacco: Advertising and marketing bans near schools; zoning restrictions for fast food joints near schools and playgrounds; overall community limits on the density of fast food restaurants; and promoting candy-free checkout aisles.
This week, UCLA health policy researchers called for taxes and fees on sweetened drinks after a new study linked soda and obesity to $21 billion in health care costs in California. In the current New England Journal of Medicine, seven leading physicians and researchers proposed a penny-per-ounce tax on sweetened beverages. They estimate that a 10 percent rise in the price of soda leads to about a 10 percent decline in consumption. The lead author, Kelly Brownell of Yale University's Rudd Center for Food Policy, coauthored an article in the same journal in April with then-New York City health commissioner Thomas Frieden saying such taxes, like tobacco taxes, could be a "key tool in efforts to improve health.''
Obama eventually picked Frieden to run the CDC. By declaring himself open to trash food taxes, Obama understands how obesity now costs America $147 billion a year, nearly 10 percent of our health care spending. But the soft drink industry has no regard for costs. Lobbying by Coca-Cola, about $1 million a year from 1998 to 2006, zoomed to $1.7 million in 2007, $2.5 million last year and was at the $1.2 million mark halfway through this year, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. The American Beverage Association, which spent $667,590 in 2008 on lobbying, has already spent $1,340,000 through the first six months of this year and launched a $2 million ad campaign against soda taxes.
Coke wants to double global beverage servings as American teen obesity has tripled. This is now a wanton attack on the health of children. Taxing Coke is not communism. It is common sense.
92 Comments so far
Show AllBrilliant- I am sure that this will be handled like "smoking"... our govt will tax cokes and junkfood while subsidising the producing companies so that they are not "hurt" by this. Everyone wins except the consumer (formerly known as citizen).
That's true, given that producing the illness while providing the cure all helps the economy by way of GDP. Isn't it wonderful.
If we stop coddling the super-rich and return to Reagan era taxes for them, we may not need to worry about other taxes.
Oh, how stupid of me... this is America, the super-rich own us.
I have not had soda in over 2 years, but I am against any proposed tax. Targeting one industry is wrong and will not fix the problem, just hurt the consumer.
Like taxing tobacco? Better to increase the sales tax for everyone (states are doing that as well). It's hilarious when you think about it. Reduce wages, send away jobs, increase the cost of necessities, cut credit, and STILL expect the consumer to spend! Now go enjoy your coke or cigarette--after all, you earned it. :o)
It is high time we make an honest accounting of the damage to society being done by products like junk food, alcohol, gambling and tobacco. These products should be taxed accordingly and the people being damaged by these products should be helped directly. Advertising bans should implemented across the board. As a case in point, these vodka ads with kids prancing about is beyond the pale.
The entire corporate "food" (to use a word loosely) system is a nutritional disaster. A typical supermarket has an entire aisle stacked on both sides with a myriad of chemically dyed, flavored, high fructose pops and sodas. Next aisle in vast array of dyed, fried, high calorie, high fat and salt chips--mostly denatured potatos and corn, now transmogrified into bags sold for $5 and up per pound. Next aisle is a double bank of dry "cereals" (a slander on the name of the ancient goddess Ceres) in which once whole grains have been ground, beaten, dyed, chemicalized, their mineral and vitamin content destroyed or tossed aside for dogfood additives and replaced with a bit of chemical vitamins--and then termed "enriched", all to be sold for $5 to $10 a pound. Then ponder the meat display of flesh from confined animal operations amounting to torture, filled with growth hormones, antibiotic residues, and a varying amount of e. coli depending on your luck--or not. The job of conning a whole population to think this stuff is food is a big and continuous one, so the "food" corporations spend hundreds of millions in advertising to pound their slogans and logos into our brains, starting with kiddie TV to get children "brand idenitifed" ASAP. Proof that this works can be observed at times when a pre-school child in a supermarket cart is having a screaming fit demanding that the parent buy some pop or cereal "like on TV"!
Back when Coke's big slogan was "Coke is It" and huge billboards were plastered around where I lived, each time I saw one, my mind would begin strategizing how to reach the billboard and add a well placed "H" or "SH". But I couldn't figure out the gymnastics of reaching the target.
Forget the tax folks, just refuse to buy and drink this garbage!
Oh great another cowardly regressive tax on consumption. By all means the working class hasn't been beat down enough in this country. What a horrendous idea!
Amos Oz once said that "altruists are never to be trusted." He was right.
In the words of the philosopher Eddie Murphy, "Have a coke, and a smile, and shut the fuck up."
Who hear honestly believes that sin taxes are effective?
Sure they're effective. Look how much money government gets from alcohol and tobacco. If they'd see the light and tax "sins" instead of banning them, their finances would look better.
Of course, seeing what-all they blow the money on, it might be small relief.
lol. however you acknowledge that sin taxes don't reduce consumption.
Not true, at least with cigarettes and youth picking up the habit
Yup.
I think making millions of dollars and hoarding the money is a sin, but I don't see anyone raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans. I think it's a sin to allow companies to make money by refusing to cover the cost of medical treatment after customers/clients have paid thousands of dollars for the insurance coverage, but I don't see us making health insurance companies illegal- or raising the taxes on the money they make or what their CEOs and shareholders earn.
I like your ideas, NMLib.
Joe
I'm a smoker. Today I pay twice as much for cigarettes as I did 10 years ago. Believe me, the sin taxes are effective. If I smoke more than one pack in a day, I'm going broke. That definitely was not true 10 years ago.
By subsidizing staple goods the developed nations are able to maintain a hegemonous relationship with the developing nations. This is simular to man's relationship with cattle.
Agricultural subsidies also directly affect the value of labor and therefore also affect the cost of everything. The only period in U.S. history that wages and staple goods were simutaneously high in their relative values to other goods and services was during the 1960s. This created opportunities and options for the working class, especially in rural America, and historically (simular dynamics from 1910 to 1920), when workers have options unionism flourishs and wages rise.
But in the 1960s this led to recruitment problems for the military and of course the turmoil during the Viet Nam War. And now the U.S. has 700+ military bases in 140 countries and an empire to maintain and subsidizing the cost of staple goods influences not only the cost of feeding the military but the pay rate. But most importantly, eliminating options for the working class, which has also been achieved by the downsizing of the manufacturing industry, and by maintaining a state of labor oversupply via immigration (legal and otherwise), is the primary dynamic of social engineering.
What this has to do with unhealthy products is that the subect of our food supply is a sensitive issue. There is widespread denial and it is important to remember that about half of the U.S. population owns stock in what is essentially a militaristic empire, and it is all interdependent. Throughout the health-care debate for instance the dialogue centers on cost, and only rarely is health considered. So-called experts are constantly claiming that our costs, when compared to other developed nations, are due only to inefficiencies without consideration of our prevelance rates of diet-related diseases; which are of course much higher than those of any of the nations compared to and obviously a nation with more per capita illness will have higher health-care costs. But these factors are ignored and when it comes to junk-food etc., world trade comes into play!!! Interdependent -- multiplied by denial -- equals the result of admitting that we are exporting illness if we admit that our domestic diet-related disease epidemic exists. So we deny.
For every thousand dollars collected in soda tax, our Elected Misrepresentatives will add a million dollars to the ATF and Homeland Security budgets-- so our paramilitary police forces can ramp up search & destroy missions against root beer stills.
· Yr Obd't Servant
Root beer stills will not be a problem. Drones with sensory technology, will have no trouble locating root beer. Keepin' tabs on who has health insurance will be more difficult. The cost of insurance, and the size of the fines ($950. per person or $3800. per family) WILL HAVE an affect on the number of those who are disenfrachised. Economic necessity does strange things to people on both sides of every equation. It is interesting how confident the ruling class is in light of the recent economic fiasco. They mention "mandated" health insurance as if it is no big deal. And of course "they" ignore considerations such as the loss of purchasing power by those "required" to buy health insurance. Naturally, as someone else said, the GDP will not be affected, this just changes who gets what. This is even less a problem than root beer stills because, health-care spending is domestic and too much OTHER SPENDING has been collecting in foreign banks, especially those in China. So perhaps it was wrong to claim that "root beer stills will not be a problem", they are just not likely to be a very big problem. More than the harm done to those who depend on the purchasing power being diverted to the health insurance industry, but less important than some of our nations other problems.
It will add new meaning to the term "Coke Dealer"
"The only means of strengthening one's intellect is to make up one's mind about nothing, to let the mind be a thoroughfare for all thoughts." - John Keats
It's all about the greedy capitalistic consumer culture that feeds on every human weakness. Soda machines everywhere, candy bars at every check out counter, unlimited porn on the Internet. The love of money drives everything in America. Capitalism has made America stupid. We even go to war to meet our every need.
Americans need to wake up and rise above the temptations of a diabolical corporate consumer culture. The solution does not rest with taxation but with a higher national consciousness.
Three cheers for Michael Moore's new movie "Capitalism, A Love Story". Maybe we can have a new national conversation.
Raise on taxes on whatever but as long as the money isn't used properly, it's pointless. On sodas, why not learn and teach people to make soda on their own and instead of sweetening carbonated water with aspartame or high fructose corn syrup, why not try stevia?
"It's all about the greedy capitalistic consumer culture that feeds on every human weakness. Soda machines everywhere, candy bars at every check out counter, unlimited porn on the Internet. The love of money drives everything in America. Capitalism has made America stupid. We even go to war to meet our every need."
Finally, someone who gets the fact that it is capitalism that is driving the obesity epidemic worldwide and who is willing to speak the truth out loud. In their insatiable drive for profits, corporations must create a demand for their products and then create the most favorable conditions for people to purchase them. This is what marketing is all about.
That citizens should meekly accept the deadly consequences of the "free market" is an absolute absurdity. Not only should junk food be taxed heavily, but its marketing should be strictly regulated. These tactics have worked very well in reducing tobacco consumption, and, in time, they should do the same for unhealthy food.
If they're so concerned about sugary substances leading to obesity, will they ban corn syrup? Or tax every grocery store item containing corn syrup or sugar? Why not increase the price of cake mix, sugar (which I buy mostly for the hummingbirds- so I'd gripe), cereal, etc. Why not raise taxes on fast food? (McDonalds has better lobbyists than the soda companies?) Why stop at raising taxes on food/drinks connected to obesity? Let's start fining people who don't exercise...
A tax on items containing high fructose corn syrup -- sounds like it could be a good plan to get it out of the food chain. It is in just about everything that is not organic: cereal, bread, salad dressings, ice cream, yogurt -- the list is practically endless.
Yes, I agree. A tax on non-nutritive and harmful substances masquerading as food - and HFCS certainly qualifies - is a good start. I'd like to see the ads for these fake foods banned on TV the way tobacco and alcohol have been banned. And they should be labeled the way tobacco products are. If people want to talk about making their own choices in food, then at least these should be informed choices about what they are putting into their bodies. Right now a lot of these so-called choices are based on manipulative advertising, a shared pretense that this stuff is "food" because it is labeled as such, and the cheapness of these items compared with real food items, in part because of such things as corn subsidies. Corn is a real food when it is eaten off the cob. HFCS is a different category altogether, and should be treated as such.
I don't get it....as big as they are...
Why can't Coke/etc come up with a good tasting beverage that's good for people....instead of the crap they produce.
Same goes for junk food companies....as long as you're taking the time to make something make something beneficial.
Personally I can't understand how Coke and Pepsi sell the stuff so cheaply. I see countless...chubby... people at the super market buying cases of the stuff on sale. And the brand X brands sell at even low prices.
There is NO nutritional value in any of this stuff.
"Why can't Coke/etc come up with a good tasting beverage that's good for people....instead of the crap they produce."
It won't sell..... and would not be as supremely addicting.
The reason Coke etc don't come up with a good tasting beverage that is less unhealthy isn't that it won't sell.
It is will increase costs. And that of course is an absolute no-no for these corporations.
Not to mention that there are multiple industries lobbying at cross purposes.
Stevia is a natural sweetener, that pretty much doesn't contain calories, that is safe. Yet, it isn't allowed by the FDA to be used as a sweetener in the US. Why? The sugar and corn lobbies oppose it.
I think diet beverages will be exempt from the tax. Corn syrup leads to obesity and aspartame leads to insanity. Isn't Rumsfield on the board of the company that produces aspartame?
I think the FDA recently approved some sort of processed stevia "Truvia" as a sweetener.
I don't have the reference but I've read research where obese teenagers were asked to change nothing except give up juice and pop. They all lost wt.
You can't "make" healthy food the way you make soda pop. Healthy food already exists. It's called natural food and whole, unprocessed food.
How fitting here in america for another not just worthless industry but as deadly as they come for the ceo to pound out more corporate razzle dazzle to keep those chubbies sucking down the sugar, just don't know if I should hate the soft drink company more or just to not give a shit about the fools that consume this junk.
I have known for a long time why the men who founded this country put so many barriers to 'unfettered' 'free hand' buisness in this country, they knew the criminal type mind that would come over and subvert the whole damn thing and now they have succeeded and most especially in turning that part in the Bill of Rights that was expressly for the individual but now that individual means the corporation's freedoms though I believe corporations are more focused on the free speech part.
And taxing soft drinks at the rate of consumption would help pay for those criminal bailouts that the people we elected gave to those that are wrecking this country for their twisted and perverted gains.
Yes, but it supports the American Death Machine (ADM).
This is why we MUST have a SINGLE PAYER healthcare system.
This is beginning to look like the most ignorant, the most untrustworthy and dictatorial administration in my lifetime.
Having so much trouble in so many areas and they go hunting for trouble? Idiots.
Well we are certainly in full agreement on this one Henry8. A tax on soda ? As my sister from tennessee would say,"lord have mercy". What's next, a tax on breathing?
"What's next, a tax on breathing?"
I think they're working on it. Let's prepare to be outlaws if this should come close to passing or even pass !
A breathing tax proposal is certainly not out of the question....just think, no new taxes on thoise making less than $250,000 and every time we look theres another tax being proposed on exactly those folks.
Man, this is nuts, here are a bunch of people objecting to taxing soft drinks, pure shit and poison dished out by a bunch of greedy corporate slugs who care NOT A JOT about the people's health, just their money and to the point that so many people are addicted to at least the sugars in those soft drinks(soft drinks, what label)and whatever else these creeps put into their diabetic cocktails that those wonderful high flying soft drink makers are 'reverently' consider a culture in not just the Idiotic States of America but the world.
Ever wonder why health world wide isn't what it was, maybe related to the fact that so many more people can't drink anything else but their 'soft drinks' instead of water which is what life is based upon and just what is the consequences of cosuming 3, 4 or 6 liters of that crap every day all year, what you don't hear or see is the MSM politely NOT reporting it according to plan.
I hope the congress or whoever will get off their sorry asses and slaps a 100% tax on this slimy stuff and for those who protesteth too much about such a tax, you should be forced to drink nothing but those sugary hells, it will fit well with your carbogarian diets.
Your sister is obviously a women of high intelligence, common sense and not politically ignorant. My best regards to her!!!
Is she available to run in 2010????
Thanks for the kind agreement.
Close, but it is not the administration, it is the oligarchy that is the untrustworthy and dictatorial, meaning the U.S.A. is controlled not by those who founded the government for this republic, a democracy, but by those who are the worst of the worse treasonous traitors any true patriot would declare the enemy and destroy them.
Frankly I can't see the oligarchy/uppers/elites being anywhere near this stupid. I'm sorry., but this could only come from some of the "bright young folks" in this administration. Those that knowe whats best for everybody, the ones that have such over reaching arrogance.
Only an idiot could come up with something like this and proclaim it would have any effect on obesity. It is also none of their damn business.
Wow, really? The most? Where were you c.2000-2008? I'm no fan of the current pResident, but please. Hyperbole does not become you, sir.
"First they came for 7-Up®
And I didn't speak up because I don't drink 7-Up®..."
· Yr Obd't Servant
Very good. Thanks for the smile.
If you don't like taxes on corn sugar, fine; how about saving our tax dollars by ending the massive federal subsidies given to corn producers? That way, we can REDUCE our taxes and save our health at the same time.
Why is it OK for a few people to get filthy rich selling health-damaging goods to children? Hello? If we as parents can limit sugar water drinks in the home, certainly there is the right to limit access in the commons the children go to outside the home.
Candy makers used to color their wares with arsenic and copper: the only way to end the practice was legislation. If "grown-ups" hadn't stepped in, children (and some adults) would still be dying of these poisons.
Let's get moving, and BE adults and set up protections against the predators in the business world.
Yes. Let's get moving. Let's BE adults, and talk to our children. Let's be adults and teach our children. Instead of expecting government to bring up our children for us with ham handed measures that will not work.
We tax cigarettes, don't we? We tax alcohol, don't we? We tax gasoline, don't we?
Direct the taxes collected to fund health care -- let our bad habits subsidize the cost of caring for the consequences of ingesting that crap. Soda is so cheap a beverage, I doubt consumers would even notice.