A new sin tax

To begin: "A study by the Centre for Science in the Public Interest showed that soft drinks were the single biggest contributor to calories in the American diet [...]"

That's right, soda beat out meat, starches, grains, fruits, and vegetables; it beat candy, cookies, and cakes. That quotation makes me feel uncomfortable drinking a soda, even if I am able to ignore the various environmental reasons for avoiding the drinks (e.g. creation of plastic bottles and draining of aquifers near bottling plants, particularly in impoverished areas in other countries (e.g. India)).

Now it seems as if Gov. Patterson is trying to change this frustrating/disgusting consumption pattern. Under Patterson's new budget plan for 2009, "[...] consumers will have to pay an 18% tax on non-diet sodas and sugary drinks." Obviously this faces resistance from drink companies and the American Beverage Association, but I am all for this policy. Sin taxes are (or at least should be) designed to discourage behavior that has a demonstrable negative effect on the person or a negative spillover effect on the community as a whole (e.g. soda leads to obesity which raises all health care costs). I think that taxing what largely amounts to a luxury good as a manner of both improving the overall level of health in the community and as a budget deficit filler is a fantastic idea. I would love to see the price of soda skyrocket to the point where it becomes as unappealing to consumers as its lasting effects are to those who actually study these effects.

Also, I have no qualms about the fact that this policy is regressive. Poverty is highly correlated with (and sometimes causally linked to) obesity, which is also causally related to soda consumption. At this point soda needs to be made a less appealing option so that money spent on calories is directed at the (slightly) healthier available alternatives as economic pressures force people to buy cheaper foods. I know that the healthy foods are the expensive foods, so it is all the more important that we push people toward the healthier end of their available consumption spectrum as their available spectrum shifts to a lower dollar level. We can take this recession and use it as a tool to shift preferences so that they take into account the true cost of the decision to drink soda. Basically, if we can get poor people to make healthy decisions we will be taking a lot of the burden off our health care system, which helps everyone and will hopefully create a positive-feedback loop that leads to lower levels of poverty (as, say, total time out of work due to poor medical treatment declines).

In the end I am actually also just happy to have another, better excuse to quit drinking soda. I hope that was coherent; I am very cold and it is pretty early.