Positive Effect Of Soda Tax By Marion Nestle

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.

“His listeners are said to have groaned and screamed in terror and Edwards stopped several times to ask for silence.” Jonathan Edwards wrote “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” as a way to express how Puritans were not living the way God wanted them to. They were not going to church daily and those who were, thought that, that was all they had to do to get into Heaven. Edwards gave very detailed views on how easy it would be to be cast down into a pit of eternal damnation as well as how you should pray for God’s mercy so you can have a glorious salvation. Edward’s ferocious use of extended metaphor and pathos swayed his audience into fearing what the afterlife held for them if they were to not repent their sins.

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

Ainsley Soli is a good person who does not belong here. At least, that is what she has been telling herself the last two years as she sits alone in solitary confinement in San Quentin State Prison. The only human contact she has had in the last 742 days is with the feral, monstrous guards that pay her a visit with a tray full of slop called prison food every day. She has not spoken one word since May 24, 2014. Sometimes she wishes she could speak, but there is no use talking when no one listens to what you have to say.

In many households, these options are the only options to eat at all. Taxing soda is only a gateway into placing a sin tax on many other unhealthy products and this will have a detrimental effect on low income families that rely on cheap, fast, easy processed food to eat. A better option to combat obesity and diabetes would be to make healthy options more accessible to the average home. There is no reason that eating organic can cost almost twice as much as eating non-organic. There is no reason that a burger costs a dollar when a salad costs five. If instead of focusing on making more profit off of taxing soda, and more focus was placed on making fresh meats, produce, and dairy accessible, the demand for unhealthy products will naturally decrease without damaging low income households. Gorman touches on this briefly by saying, “[t]he biggest solution is to encourage and support people to drink water instead of sugar.” (Gorman) Just the act of encouraging people to make healthy choices could make a world of difference, but instead the advertising markets are dominated by big cooperate soda companies. A balance of public announcements about healthy options could help knock down the consumption of

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,

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"

How is this plain old bubbly drink, soda, such a huge controversy in New York? The new soda ban is the answer. Soda isn't being banned completely. But at many of your favorite food places the maximum amount of soda that is allowed to be purchased is a 16 ounce cup. Back and forth, is this a good thing or bad? Believe it or not the soda ban will actually be beneficial to a serious and fatal health problem you yourself might not even know that you or somebody close to you is suffering from. This extreme health issue is known as obesity and more than 1/3rd of our population is suffering from it today. Dr. Joel A. Forman, a board member and professor of medicine has been quoted saying "I can't imagine the board not acting on another problem that

Their advertisement proclaimed that all they wanted to do was “protect their Freedom of Choice.” “This is New York City; no one tells us what neighborhood to live in or what team to root for,” says the narrator, as Yankees and Mets fans shout in the background. (Grynbaum, 2012). Since May 30 when Bloomberg wanted to ban the sale of soft drinks over 16 ounces in regulated food establishments such as movie theaters and sport arenas. Senator Frank R. Lautenberg, a New Jersey Democrat, recommended there be a federal study linking together sugary beverages and obesity. “The talking points are ‘Nanny State,’ that it won’t work, because people will just buy as much as they ever would, and that this disproportionately hurts the poor,” said Kelly Brownell, director of the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University. (Grynbaum, 2012). People that are not middle or low class would buy as much soda as they wanted and the rest of the people would be stuck with whatever drink is leftover. The lower class minority groups seem to always get the shorter end of the stick and in most cases unless a big group of them get together their voices will not be heard. The mayor or the city council should not have the right to tell you what size soda to drink or what kind of soda to drink; We live in The United States of America and there is no law that says anything about a specific size or flavor of soda so until that day comes nobody should

A deadweight loss from a market of over five million people would have had major implications for US soda distributors. Deadweight loss is without a doubt bad for soda produces in this situation, but perhaps what made the tax unpopular with residents is related to a concept called the benefits principle. The benefits principle is, people should pay taxes based on the benefits they receive from government services. In Cook County the tax was established for the purpose of filling a 1.8 billion dollar hole in the budget. With no quantifiable benefit to the community, it is understandable that people were opposed to paying a new fee when they buy sweetened soft drinks. In Philadelphia on the other hand proceeds go directly into an educational fund which helps pay for pre-kindergarten and community schools. So the residents of Philadelphia see a real, quantifiable benefit of the extra fee for the soda, which they buy and any attempts to repeal the Philadelphia soda tax would likely be met with fierce opposition from families.

1Why has there been so much fuss about New York City’s attempt to impose a soda ban,1 or more precisely, a ban on large-size “sugary drinks”? After all, people can still get as much soda as they want. This isn’t Prohibition. It’s just that getting it would take slightly more effort. So, why is this such a big deal?

The ban on larger sodas would only make people buy more than one soda to satisfy their cravings as they do not like being told what they can and can not have. In 2013, in response to the ban, The Daily Signal reported “Mayor Bloomberg and the Board of Health seek to use their power to change consumer behavior. This assumes that citizens are ignorant and must be protected from themselves.” This agrees with the above statement of the people not liking being told what they can and can not do, or have. Another thing people may argue is that the ban is for people to be able to be healthier and still have soda. CNN News reports that “One of those solutions is to control portion size and sugar consumption.” While this is true the ban would only be subjective to places such as movie theaters, sports venues, restaurants, and places that people visit every once in a blue moon. The Huffington Post reports, “It's also important to look at where people acquire such large drinks. … Such neighborhood stores selling over 50 percent food products fall under the jurisdiction of the City's Department of Health, and therefore would be limited by the ban. Those selling under 50 percent food products would be exempt from the ban.” This basically states that convenience stores, supermarkets, and gas stations would not be subjective to the ban so people could just go to one of these places to get larger sodas therefore finding a way around the ban. This subjectiveness of the ban would not only make the ban inefficient but would also cost the city by stores and other places that fall under the jurisdiction of the ban having to cut workers, which then causes the state to have to create more programs for poorer city

Responsible for the successful scheduling, coordination, tracking and closure average of 200 production orders through four work centers a month.

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

“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.