Wednesday, July 29, 2009
The Smackdown: Should Soda Be Taxed?
On the heels of the Nerd's last post, where Denis stated "someone needs to seriously smack-down the American junk food industry", the smack-down has been proposed if form of a tax on soda.
Food Companies Fight Soda Tax Proposal Despite Staggering Obesity Epidemic
To me is makes perfect sense. We tax alcohol. We tax cigarettes. Soda does more damage and costs society more than both of those things combined, so why not?
"Americans Against Food Taxes" present of few reasons in the above ad. It should be noted that these particular Americans work in the soda, sugar, and genetically modified food industries. Personally, I think we should de-classify soda and other junk foods as food. Beer has more food value than soda.
Here's my take on the subject in more depth:
The World's Worst Food
What we have brewing is a 50's era tobacco-esque showdown between Big Junk Food and the American public. Almost makes me want to sit in a board room clogged with smoke and contemplate the solution over cocktails... almost.
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Personally, I don't think taxes are going to fix anything. If people want to drink pop, they are going to pay that extra 3 cents. Plus, you open up the problem of, "Why just pop and juice?" Why not also tax hotdogs, Cookie Crisp cereal, and candy bars? It opens up a can of worms- who decides what is taxed and what isn't? At what point is the government acting as our nanny and telling us what to eat and drink? I think the food industry is to blame for a lot of things, but people also share some of the guilt and need to carry some of the responsiblity, too.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I'm all for requiring nutritional information to be available in restaurants nationwide, but taxing goes one step too far, at least for me. Furthermore, I don't think it would even be an effective tactic for dealing with the issue. I think the ultimate solution is going to require a level of complexity that a "magic" tax just isn't going to fulfill.
I'd much rather see more effort on the fronts of education, recess, programs in schools and workplaces, healthier school lunches, sidewalks, bike lanes, trails, showers at work, gyms built into offices, less urban sprawl, more focus on the outside world, and less on the internet and video games... etc, etc., etc. There needs to be a HUGE shift in attitude and mindset in this country (and other countries) before anything changes.
Do you agree with taxing alcohol and cigarettes? The problem is the that the soda companies are so powerful they are not only controlling what the kids eat in school but their lack of education on health matters. Soda is the number one caloric source kids get worldwide (worst in the US). The companies that make them use insidious practices to place worse and worse ingredients in their products, then turn around and use "free enterpise" to hold our school systems hostage. A similar argument happened over tobacco in the 50s and 60s. Do you think it'd be a better society if everyone smoked everywhere the way they once did? Actually, we were healthier then, which exemplifies just how powerful the soda companies are, and that is downright scary.
ReplyDeleteOn labeling, yes, it's great. But how many of the ingredients on a Coke lable can you identify? Most of these aren't even foods. They are by-products of genetically modified corn and soy production that, in order to save money, the soda companies have somehow turned into food ingredients are railroaded them past the FDA (lobbyists, anyone?) These things have no nutrients, shakey science confirming their safety, and are consumed more by our population than vegetables.
ReplyDeleteKelly, they tax alcohol and cigarettes but people still drink and smoke. So therefore, they're not trying to make it so we can't eat or drink certain things, they're just trying to make it so it's more inconvenient to go for the bad stuff. I'd love it if they eventually taxed all junk food. How is that wrong? People complain that healthy food is more expensive. This will just help to make it a little more even. It's true that there needs to be a huge mind shift in the way Americans look at activity and food, but until then we can start implementing small changes.
ReplyDeleteI agree with a junk food tax. Very much so!
ReplyDeletePersonally, whether alcohol is taxed or not, I'm still going to drink it. If I want a beer some special night, I want a beer... period. So unless you make the tax 1000% you aren't really going to inhibit my behavior in the least.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I'd be fine with not having taxes on alcohol or cigarettes. It's a personal choice if you want to drink or smoke. If you want to smoke, then fine, deal with the higher insurance premiums, but what you do with your body is your business. (Again, I stress "your" body, which is why legislation surrounding smoking in restaurants and DUIs is another topic entirely- since at that point, it's not just "your" body, but "my body," too).
I believe there's a big difference between an informational system- where you provide info for the individual to make their own choice- and a punishment system- where you create negative consequences for a specific choice. I prefer the former over the latter. So sure, get nutritional info out there, let us know how our food is made and what goes into it, but don't punish me on the rare occasion I indulge in a twinkie. If anything, switch over to a reward system if that's feasible. Reward buying an apple over a Snicker's bar. Don't ask me how that's done, but if it ever worked, I'd bet money that it would be more successful than a punishment system.
If you seriously want to tax "junk" food, then you need to see it for what it is- a model for generating revenue for government, NOT a tool for stopping a behavior. Furthermore, you need to look at how the tax money will be used- will it be going toward healthy initiatives such as sidewalks, bike lanes, and parks? If not, then that's a big problem in my book. If you are thinking the entire country will suddenly change their unhealthy habits just because of a tax... well, I wouldn't hold your breath.
Finally, I have to say I would love to see people in this country get healthy, lose weight, and get moving. So on that point, we are the same and can agree. Where we differ are the methods used to achieve this, and I just don't feel taxes are the answer.
You pose some good talking points on taxation but that's not really the issue here. On the flip side, large corporations pay virtually no income tax because they hide their profits in foreign investments, offshore accounts, etc (don't have all these stats at hand but off the top of my head Goldman Sachs paid 1% income tax last year--not even a tenth of their CEO's salary). So you can have public money used inefficiently by government or essentially just stolen by rich investors. At some point we've got to make that choice.
ReplyDeleteRegardless, the issue here is whether it will impact the public's consumption of soda. As you've seen if you read the blog obesity is costing each one of us a lot of money every year. Soda is the number one caloric source in the world. That is insane, since a diet that's over 10% soda (less than per capita average, so way less than the average obese person) makes it virtaully impossible to consume a balanced diet.
Still having a beer when you want it (or three or four) is a far cry from drinking it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Any effect this has will be an improvement, even if the profits end up in a slush fund.
I agree that this will not be the thing that will cause major healthcare reform and make people start running and eating broccoli. I'm just saying that it's a start.
ReplyDeleteFurthermore, I do think that someone else being obese is everyone's problem now that it's such a huge (pardon the pun) epidemic. That obese person is not just paying a bigger insurance premium for themself, they're making premiums and healthcare costs and taxes for this rise everywhere. If most people were fit and healthy, it would not cost nearly as much to have insurance because we wouldn't have people taking five different medications a day, getting triple-bypass surgeries, etc.
Also, I do think it's rewarding someone to buy an apple instead of a soda if the apple is cheaper: not only does your body thank you, but you get to keep more money. But by having way higher prices on the healthy, clean food, and making it so you can eat processed junk for practically nothing, I think that in itself is what causes a lot of people to go for the soda. I mean, I love to buy juice (not juice drinks, but actual juice), and it's about three times the price of soda. This tax on soda seems like it might be a start to fixing that.
Steve,
ReplyDeleteYou say you have to make a choice between government spending and rich CEOs, but who's to say that suddenly taxing pop and juice is going to do anything to change offshore investing and unethical business practices? So now, you are taxing everyone, the government is potentially wasting your money, AND the CEOs are still doing just fine. Since I don't believe taxes will greatly affect the number of people consuming pop, I don't see how that will have any effect on the bonuses Mr. Pop CEO takes home this quarter.
Screwdestiny,
Even considering that obesity is "everyone's problem," and their health insurance issues cause our own premiums to go up- I still don't see how taxes would fix this? Now not only are you paying higher insurance premiums, you are also paying taxes on that Birthday party food you just bought, and because people are still drinking too much pop, you still are stuck with the higher premiums.
If you really wanted to use taxes as the solution, you would have to make the taxes so prohibitively high, that people would have no choice but to eat healthy foods- but then this is what frightens me most- a nanny government making my choices for me. How much say do you want the government to have in what you eat?
I hate to come off as so confrontational, but I can't help but get feisty when I think about being punished with taxes because my choices don't line up with what the government thinks I should be doing. I've never liked "sin" taxes and as I already said, I don't think cigarettes and alcohol should be taxed, either. It's an individual choice.
Of course, the problem with obesity is that too many people have made poor choices and enough of them to cause a problem... even to the detriment of their peers and fellow countrymen.... but does that give us the right to choose for them? Perhaps that's really the issue here.
I guess I can't sit here, though, and talk about how this taxation idea isn't the solution without proposing a solution of my own, not that it is the best or right one. I still think that what needs to happen is a multi-level campaign involving a variety of subtopics. Obesity needs to be addressed on all its levels, through every applicable avenue, and directed at every age, gender, and race. It needs to be tackled from a combination of physical, nutritional, emotional, mental, and societal angles. We can't keep coming out with study after study, pill after pill, magazine article upon magazine article, and expect people to grab all of these random puzzle pieces and assemble the big picture. It needs to be a unified and targeted approach and there needs to be a genuine interest in the health of the population instead of a tendency to give in to powerful corporations and lobbying groups. Perhaps that's not possible. I don't blame the government for not taking on such a challenge. To distill such an overarching and vague goal into concrete, detailed actions.... it might be too much to ask.
Don't worry, Kelly, I don't take confrontation or differing opinions as an insult. I welcome them as I can be feisty about things as well. :)
ReplyDeleteThe thing about the tax is, it very well may make people drink less pop if other drinks are suddenly cheaper. I know the reason my parents bought soda sometimes when I was a kid is just because the other healthier drinks were just so much more exepensive. If soda costs rise because of a tax, and I don't mean to ridiculous prices, but you know, on par with juice or something, then it would make people think twice about it. Or at least that's my theory. Maybe I underestimate America's obsession with soda... Also, I don't think you can ever say it's "choosing for them" just because we're putting a tax on it. The only way that would be the case is if we were trying to ban soda production from the U.S. (ha!), and nobody's trying to do that, at least nobody with any kind of power.
I did, however, agree a lot with the point you made about where the additional tax money will be going. It seems essential to me that if this does go through, the tax money should go to more health care initiatives. If we can get some people to spend less money by making unhealthy products more expensive and then use money from the people who continue to buy those products in order to implement better programs into schools, get more knowledge out to the general public, etc., then I think we will be on our way.
Paraphrasing my comment over on The Straight Dope as follows:
ReplyDelete1. If you tax soda, there will be a dependency created on what you are using that tax to fund, and selling soda. Once soda becomes a revenue maker for the government, you will never see it go away.
2. People do have the right to kill themselves drinking soda, smoking, drinking alcohol, etc. They do not have the right to make me pay for it in increased health care costs, insurance costs, etc. That's a separate Gordian knot altogether.
3. Pull the soda machines out of school, and I'd also like to see the advertising pulled.
I hear the desperation as far as "something needs to be done", but the demand for soda will be pretty inelastic, meaning they will pay for it regardless of price. Why? Because they're addicted to sugar and caffeine, just like I used to be addicted to nicotine. If I was still smoking, I'd donate plasma for the five bucks a pack.
So, the answer? Multi-faceted approach. Try to tone down the subliminal messages that are beign put out through advertising and cultural acceptability of drinking soda. Second, increase the education in an effort to reduce demand. Drinking soda is a symptom of a much larger issue, that being an apathy in this society that is currently rotting away at its core. Taxing will only cause a backlash and a polarization of public opinion when soda isn't the issue at all, it's health and fitness.
Again, my .02 FWIW.
You need government intervention one way or another. Currently, free enterprise has allowed soda companies control some of our schools. They even write their health text books. So not only are you not going to get soda out of those schools but we can't even teach the kids to be wary of its impact. Taxing my not be the end-all answer but people do smoke and drink less now than they did when those things were cheaper. And that's the bottom line here.
ReplyDeleteSoda is the number one caloric source in the world. Let me, in my best Joe Binden impersonation, say that again. SODA IS THE NUMBER ONE CALORIC SOURCE IN THE WORLD. Any small percentage we can reduce this will have a huge impact on the world's health and the cost of our health care.
Kelly, we're not taxing everyone. Only those who drink soda. How is this bad? It's a drug, not a food, and one that has no positive health benefits. If I want a soda I'm happy to pay more for it becuase it's an indulgence.
ReplyDeleteIf you read the article (in the blog) you'll see that in some areas on earth soda is cheaper and easier to find than water. It's like the Brawndo scenario from Idiocracy manifesting itself for real.
Lol, Steve, at the Idiocracy comment. I'm sure Coca Cola would love to make it so we could only use their Dasani to water crops, etc.
ReplyDeleteDasani? Gatorade. After all, it's got electrolytes. It's what plants need!
ReplyDeleteSteve, you raise a very good point about the food companies in the schools/writing their textbooks. Your comment initially brought up parallels in my mind about how Camel would market cigarettes to children, and contrasting that to how soda companies contribute to health textbooks and place vending machines in schools has me wondering if that is a crowbar that can be used against them.
ReplyDeleteMeaning, I'm not convinced that it is common knowledge (bear with me, I'm in NM, we're rather rustic here) that food corporations have such a stranglehold on what information is disseminated in schools. Were it made known that the food companies were engaging in baiting techniques (write the health textbook, put the soda machine outside the classroom) and using taxpayer money to essentially advertise, if that wouldn't cause enough outrage to place regulations on *that*. Yes, it'd be government intervention on how they can advertise, but many industries are regulated in that (including mine; as a CPA, I can't advertise in certain ways).
I'm just so very leery of taxing soda consumption as what it would do is actually backfire and strengthen the dependency on soda sales, which is exactly what you do NOT want.
Another item, the perception that sodas are a drug, not a food.....
ReplyDeleteIf public opinion agreed, then it'd be regulated, taxed, restricted, etc. That said, public opinion is not strong enough on this issue for legislators to be overly bothered with this, there's no political gain in it for them from this angle.
That said, if it were sold as part of health care reform, marketing to children, childhood obesity, and the cost to taxpayers..........perhaps connecting those dots could get enough brainpower firing to look at soda a different way.......?
Until soda is seen as truly dangerous, nothing will be done. So what can be done to change public perception? This isn't a rhetorical question......
Well, I really don't know what can be done to change public perception if seeing millions of obese people isn't doing the case. With smoking, they had to really drive home what it did *inside* your body, because the outer effects really aren't too bad, before people started realizing it was stupid. But it seems that we're pretty well educated on all the health problems that come along with obesity, so I don't know what needs to change.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, Steve, does Coca Cola own Gatorade? That's why I originally said Dasani, 'cause I wasn't sure if they do.
Why don't we just stop subsidizing the corn industry which makes high fructose corn syrup (and thus soda) so cheap to begin with? Then the government can keep that money and soda will be naturally more expensive (maybe we'd even go back to real sugar) without the need for an extra tax! This tax just seems like a sneaky way to funnel money back to the government during this economic crisis....
ReplyDelete