Reason Writers Around Town: Katherine Mangu-Ward in WaPo on Soda Taxes

Katherine Mangu-Ward | September 28, 2009

Like bears to honey or zombies to brains, politicians find something irresistible about soda taxes. President Obama recently told Men's Health magazine that he thinks a "sin tax" on soda is "an idea that we should be exploring." San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom moved to impose a fee on stores for selling sugary drinks, only to admit that his plan was probably illegal. In December, New York Gov. David Paterson proposed a 18 percent tax on full-sugar soda to help cover a budget shortfall. After a public outcry, he claimed he was just raising awareness about childhood obesity. In Sunday's Washington Post Senior Editor Katherine Mangu-Ward debunks five myths about soda taxes.

Read the whole thing here.

Comments

Anonymous|9.28.09 @ 10:09AM|#

Or maybe it's just a policy so mind-numbingly stupid that it distracts from the communism.

Mike in PA|9.28.09 @ 10:29AM|#

Let's assume their arguments are all right for a second and these taxes will really discourage behavior...

Then what would taxes on businesses do?
Discourage business?

How about taxes on income?

|9.28.09 @ 11:00AM|#

If I were a cash-hungry bureaucrat, I'd charge an administrative fee to taxpayers for processing taxes. Say 2-5%, depending on the complexity of the return.

JB|9.28.09 @ 11:21AM|#

I'm much more in favor of a 50% tax on clothing items over $30.

I call it the dumb bitch tax.

Mr Lizard|9.28.09 @ 11:27AM|#

I'm all for it. I'd much rather get busted smuggling boat load of tax-free coke from south America. As opposed to smuggling a boat load of coke that should be taxed.

|9.28.09 @ 11:45AM|#

"So soda does help people pack on the pounds. But so does absolutely everything everyone eats."

Can I take you order - "yes, I'll have a double cheeseburger, supersize fries and a diet coke. Have to watch the weight you know"

Jimbo|9.28.09 @ 11:55AM|#

I'd like to impose a deposit fee on cigarette butts.

You'd pay something like a quarter per heater when you bought a pack. However, you could get it back if you brought the butt back after you were done smoking.

1) It would stop assholes from flipping the butt out their car window forcing me to honk at them and give them the bird.

2) It would be the start of the Golden Years for the hobos. Think of all the money laying out there on our streets that they could pick up and use to buy health care (what else would they spend it on?).

3) I'd love to see how many stores would immediately stop selling smokes if they were forced to pick through bags of butts so they could pay the deposit back.

Of course, I have to admit that I would never actually try to pass something like that because I couldn't meet with the press and pretend that policing cigarette butts is a valid function of the gubbment.

classwarrior|9.28.09 @ 12:05PM|#

Katherine, did you actually look at the graph referenced in point #2? It actually shows per capita consumption more than doubling during the time frame mentioned! Is this dishonesty, laziness, or blindness? Enquiring minds want to know!

Rich|9.28.09 @ 12:09PM|#

If soda is the "new tobacco", simply make it illegal to buy/use soda if under 16yo.

And Jimbo, I second that idea.

|9.28.09 @ 12:10PM|#

Can I take you order - "yes, I'll have a double cheeseburger, supersize fries and a diet coke. Have to watch the weight you know"

Here.

|9.28.09 @ 12:11PM|#

I'll have you know that Soylent Green has no added sugar!

BakedPenguin|9.28.09 @ 12:45PM|#

Can I take you order - "yes, I'll have a double cheeseburger, supersize fries and a diet coke. Have to watch the weight you know"

Whaddya think this is, some kind of joke? I want ten Big Macs and a small Diet Coke.

BakedPenguin|9.28.09 @ 12:55PM|#

Michael Jacobson of the Center for Science in the Public Interest tore into a 2004 scientific research report that kicked off anti-corn-syrup hysteria...

If the professional hysteria mongers at CSPI won't bite, you know your cause is lost.

...or they've been paid off by the Corn Council

|9.28.09 @ 2:18PM|#

Katherine, did you actually look at the graph referenced in point #2? It actually shows per capita consumption more than doubling during the time frame mentioned! Is this dishonesty, laziness, or blindness? Enquiring minds want to know!

Actually, consumption increased until about 1999, then has slightly decreased since then. The first graph stops at 1990. So the amount of soda drunk has not increased in the past ten years. FWIW

tekende|9.28.09 @ 2:27PM|#

You know, there's no point in even discussing the health-related issues of soda, because that is not at all the reason politicians want to tax soda so bad.

The real motive is simple: money. They know that even with increased taxation, we will still keep buying soda. Hell, they'd probably have to charge a 200% tax before you'd even start to see a minor drop in soda sales. A soda tax is a guaranteed money maker for the government.

RuthenianCowboy|9.28.09 @ 3:10PM|#

Caffeine from soda keeps my migraines at bay.

Or would the government prefer I stop drinking soda and have their soon-to-be socialized health care system pay for me to go on Imitrex?

|9.28.09 @ 3:53PM|#

Re: Mike in PA

Then what would taxes on businesses do?
Discourage business?

How about taxes on income?

Yes, on both - but our wise overseers do not say these taxes discourage business or better earnings. No, they would say these foment GROWTH(!)

|9.28.09 @ 7:34PM|#

"But the hazards of cheap corn sweetener are the stuff of pseudo-scientific legend. New York University nutritionist Marion Nestle, a major proponent of soda taxes, has said of corn syrup: "It's basically no different from table sugar. . . . The body can't tell them apart."

You can't really cite a nutritionist as the antidote to pseudo-science since nutritionism is simply an ideology or, more charitably, a field of study. Sure, it now has the gravitas of an actual science, thanks to the government's adoption of it as a way to govern our "daily recommendations." That doesn't make it a science.

Yes, the taxation of soda is silly and should be mocked. The more intellectually honest subject of mockery here is the double-taxation involved in the creation and consumption of high-fructose corn syrup. Through subsidies, we're already paying for corn, which yields the main ingredient of the Coke we would, under soda taxes, be punished for then drinking.

Anonymous|9.29.09 @ 12:09AM|#

RuthenianCowboy,

But it's an additive. It's easier to stop adding it than introduce a new regulatory framework. But you can get caffeine pills separately, and there are other things that have it in there naturally.