Damien's Response: The Taxing Of Sugary Drinks

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

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.

He earnestly states “ The soda producers and distributors, as well as the Teamsters members who deliver the product, argue that the tax is a job killer…” Bittman uses this strategy as a vessel to communicate his enthymeme that the soda producers and distributors only care about the profit they make as they “..may spend as much as 10 million dollars to make that case.” however, Bittman believes that the health of the impoverished is more important than the tax being referred to as a “job killer”. This strategy is effective towards his audience because they now have a clear understanding of what Bittman is arguing. He states “ The logic of taxing sugar-sweetened beverages has been clear for a decade…” here in this quote he explicitly states that the tax is a logical concept in which if it is applied then it will yield great results. Such as, decreasing the percent of children with a threat of diabetes and other

“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,

Today, research asserts soda is one of the leading causes of poor health outcomes in the United States. People define soda as carbonated beverages, or soft drinks, or fizzy drinks. A significant relationship exists between the consumption of carbonated drinks and obesity, type 2 diabetes and dental caries in the United States (Gollust et al., 52). Tax on soda is considered as a government’s intervention to regulate the consumption of these kinds of drinks. In fact, soda should be taxed in the United States because it discourages the consumption of soda, makes people healthier, and raises government funds.

Also why raise taxes of one drink if other drinks are going to be cheaper than that drink now, this happen when they raise taxes for healthy drinks leaving soda cheap and affordable when they knock out the competition for the soda products. Taxing sodas is really unfair because the states or cities are singling out just sodas which wasn't their fault to begin with as it said "For instance, if a tax only applies to soda, or within city limits, drinkers

The idea of beginning a tax on sugary drinks is nowhere near a new one. Many people immediately jump to soda whenever they hear this idea, and that’s where most people see the problem surrounding the sugary drink debate. I see the problem not with the products themselves but how they are abused to the point where they can become a problem to the consumer. Like most things, it’s all good in moderation but once you start to have three to four cans or bottles a day it can start to be an issue. Thats where this proposed tax is supposed to come in and save the day. Or so that’s what most of us have been told, and some of us believe. But maybe this new tax doesn’t need to have a place in our society.

Congress hereby finds and declares that the United States of America has experienced a dramatic increase in the number of obese people and the number of deaths caused by the symptoms of obesity. Obesity is the leading cause of preventable deaths and accounts for 18% of all deaths in America (Fox 2013); thus, a one-cent-per-ounce tax on sugary beverages will decrease consumer rates and lower the obesity level. The rise in sweetened beverage consumption is parallel to the increase in obesity rates. Soda and other sugary substances are the largest contributors to sugar and calorie intake; soft drinks, energy drinks, sweet teas, and sports drinks are considered the top most consumed beverages in America (Kickthecan 2014). The annual medical costs due to obesity and overweight Americans is also staggering. The proposed solution will not hinder the necessary diet and nutritional value of one 's meal, but rather improve it by reducing the amount of sugar American 's consume, especially since sugary beverages are a large factor of obesity that can be costly and life threatening.

As William Shughart states in the article: “Should There Be a Tax on Soda and Other Sugary Drinks?”, published in the Wall Street Journal “taxes on sugary beverages are regressive and would hurt the poor”. While it is true that sodas and sugary beverage are the most consumed by low income working family; however, the amount of tax per ounce and the effect aren’t harming the poor families. In fact, it is the opposite; they are the biggest beneficiary of this tax in the short and the long term. First, the tax is not big enough to hurt the pocketbooks of the poor. In fact, it is around “1.5 cents per-ounce” in Philadelphia (Cuellar). Moreover, we could never consider the tax harmful, if we understand the aim of such a sin tax and we remember the nature of the taxed product. Actually, considering the health effect of consuming it, the taxed product is indeed the real harm. The tax will prevent the poor and the working families from consuming soda drinks in big quantities, and protect them from the consequences of excessive sugar consumption. Accordingly, because poor and low income families had suffered the most from the consumption of sugary beverages, by high rates of diabetes diseases and obesity, we will see the biggest positive changes in those

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

To begin, it helps encourage people to stop drinking soda and start drinking water. Some people won’t like the new tax, and stop buying them, which make people stop. In history, people started boycotting, and so some people would stop buying so much soda too.

For starters,if you do tax soda is will not effective some people.If you do add taxes to soda it obesity won’t end.Also if you add taxes to soda people will not make any better choices and also since people won’t make better choices people can find other stuff that they will enjoy and then they have to tax that as well until everything is taxed.People can find other sugary drinks if they tax soda.People can just buy energy drinks that does not taste bad and they can just drink that instead of soda if they tax soda.

“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