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5 Myths We Need to Can About Soda Taxes - Why do politicians keep trying to tax your Coke?
Reason ^ | September 29, 2009 | Katherine Mangu-Ward

Posted on 10/01/2009 5:16:58 PM PDT by neverdem

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. But he was also rehashing the same old myths about how taxing soda will save us all:

1. Sin taxes are for our own good.

The basic idea sounds reasonable enough. Why not have the government nudge citizens along the path to righteousness by making bad choices more expensive? But even the most avid proponents of sin taxes concede that none of the nickel-and-dime proposals on the table is large enough to discourage soda drinking. And they're not really intended to. Soda taxes, like most sin taxes, aren't primarily designed to reduce consumption-they're designed to raise revenue. Tap water is already virtually free. Adding a few cents in tax to a $1.29 soda bottle isn't going to send cost-conscious Coke-guzzlers swarming to the nearest water fountain. Forty states currently take a bite out of sales of soda or junk food-if anyone's addicted to soda, it's state legislatures. In the Men's Health interview, Obama focused on childhood obesity. But the Senate Finance Committee's interest in soda taxes at a hearing this spring wasn't about keeping American spawn slim; health-care reformers were salivating over the projected $24 billion in revenue that a 3-cent tax would generate over the next four years.

2. Soda is causing the obesity epidemic.

It's true that, on the whole, fat people drink more soda than skinny people. They also consume more calories overall and exercise less. So soda does help people pack on the pounds. But so does absolutely everything everyone eats. No news story about soda is complete without the scolding phrase "empty calories," yet soda consumption per capita has remained steady over the past two decades as obesity numbers have continued to rise. Weight gain is a function of calories in minus calories out. A food calorie is 4.2 kilojoules of energy, whether it comes from a bottle of orange juice, a latte or an ice-cold Coke. Cola calories are not uniquely "empty." They are not bleak, hollow shells of calories, staging tiny productions of "Waiting for Godot" in your love handles. A calorie is a calorie.

3. Soda taxes help everyone.

Even advocates of soda taxes admit that the costs will be borne disproportionately by the poor, who spend a larger percentage of their income on soda than other groups. Nonetheless, politicians continue the long tradition of taxing the wazoo out of a can of Coke while leaving upscale beverages and luxury foods sin-tax-free. Eight ounces of Naked's Mighty Mango juice ($3.79 a bottle at Whole Foods) contains slightly more sugar than the same serving of cola, while diet soft drinks have the same calorie count as water. But nationwide, fancy juices and venti mocha Frappuccinos remain almost completely untouched by sin surcharges, while a bodega bottle of Sprite brings down the wrath of the taxman. It's the silly, sugary equivalent of the distinction between the harsh sentencing guidelines for people caught with crack vs. the lenient sentencing for possessors of cocaine, its high-class cousin.

4. High-fructose corn syrup is extremely hazardous to your health.

It's the stuff that makes soda sticky sweet-and the reason many justify a soda tax. Florida state Rep. Juan Zapata called it the "crack of sweeteners" and tried to ban it in schools in 2006. At the popular blog Slashfood, it's known as "the devil's additive." High-fructose corn syrup has been treated as the fall guy for America's obesity problem. 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." Even the head of the self-proclaimed "food police" has denounced high-fructose fear-mongering. 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, saying, "The authors of this paper misunderstood chemistry, draw erroneous conclusions and have done a disservice to the public in generating this controversy."

5. Obesity is driving health-care costs up. A soda tax is just a user fee.

Should we consider soda taxes an advance payment for all those diabetes tests and emergency room visits down the road-not to mention the cost of buying the inevitably necessary super-size MRI machines? A group of academics, state health commissioners and others take exactly that line in the pages of the New England Journal of Medicine this month, writing, "Escalating health care costs and the rising burden of diseases related to poor diet create an urgent need for solutions, thus justifying government's right to recoup costs." But there is a dangerous precedent at the root of this argument: that government can and should tax any behavior that hurts the budget's bottom line. That logic sends us down a strange road. It's just a slouch, sink and a slump to taxing remote controls, thus encouraging the fat and lazy to get a little exercise by standing up to change the channel.

All kinds of private decisions-good and bad-affect government spending. That doesn't give politicians the right to use taxes to push people around.

Katherine Mangu-Ward is a senior editor at Reason magazine.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Editorial; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: hfcs; sintaxes; sodataxes
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To: neverdem

“A HFCS-55 tax would only be temporary to fund a study or two.”

I’ve never heard of a temporary tax. Tax cut yeah


21 posted on 10/01/2009 8:13:32 PM PDT by Lurkina.n.Learnin (Waste and fraud are synonymous with gov't spending)
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To: neverdem

In that single metabolic pathway you show, I see absolutely no difference between those metabolites of fructose and the metabolites of many other pathways where the start point is not fructose. In fact, many if not most of those molecules are found in glycolysis and the citric acid cycle.

Fructose is the sweetener in fruit. It’s also found in other sweet natural products (like honey).

Triglyceride (i.e. fat) production occurs because of excess caloric intake. It is not unique to fructose consumption.

There’s no reason to think that fructose is any better or worse for you than any other digestible sugar.


22 posted on 10/01/2009 8:42:00 PM PDT by exDemMom (Now that I've finally accepted that I'm living a bad hair life, I'm more at peace with the world.)
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To: exDemMom
Read the article that the metabolic pathway came from, "Fructose, insulin and dyslipidemia." After fructokinase, no enzyme is needed to have glycerol ready to be esterified to a triglyceride in the presence of fatty acids save the final enzyme, IIRC. Hence, the authors describe it as de novo lipogenesis. The fructose is a ready source of glycerol.
23 posted on 10/01/2009 8:57:49 PM PDT by neverdem (Xin loi minh oi)
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To: OpeEdMunkey
Makes me wish I could deep-fry Coke in trans-fats.


24 posted on 10/01/2009 9:08:19 PM PDT by rightwingcrazy
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To: LearsFool

It took tax after oppressive tax to rile the colonists up enough to fight for freedom.”

You put in your 40 hours and the govt. takes some of your gross.
You buy a house with the money the govt has already taxed and the only way you can keep the house is to pay the govt
tax every year or they will kick you out of it.Own property my a$$.
If you want to add or change the house on your own property, you have to pay more tax.
You buy a car and you have to pay tax on it.
To drive the car you have to pay another tax and to put fuel in the car, more tax.
Food? more tax.
drink? more tax.
Smoke? more tax.
Tax to drive through a National monument.
Tax to go on a state beach.
Phone tax.
Cable tax.
And after you’re dead and your children want to keep what Dad and Mom built, they have to pay tax on everything you already paid taxes on.

I know I had to have missed some tax somewhere, but this is taxing my brain.


25 posted on 10/01/2009 9:44:36 PM PDT by philetus (Keep doing what you always do and you'll keep getting what you always get.)
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To: hecht

I drink Lipton tea. I go every week to have tea at the Huntington Library.


26 posted on 10/02/2009 1:38:30 AM PDT by ErnstStavroBlofeld ("We will either find a way, or make one."Hannibal/Carthaginian Military Commander)
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To: hecht

I am also breaking the diet Coke habit my girfriend has.


27 posted on 10/02/2009 1:39:30 AM PDT by ErnstStavroBlofeld ("We will either find a way, or make one."Hannibal/Carthaginian Military Commander)
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To: neverdem

Sugary culprit? How bout we have some scientific talk about sugar? Starches and fats are long chains of sugars. Many more sugar molecules in two slices of bread than a coke! O wait, can’t tax carb loaded bread with the farm lobby (notice I did not say farmers- huge diff).


28 posted on 10/02/2009 2:11:11 AM PDT by momincombatboots (The last experience of the sinner is the horrible enslavement of the freedom he desired. -C.S. Lewis)
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To: neverdem
What's your explanation for non-alcoholic fatty liver disease? You can't find it in medical books from over two decades ago. Now, they are predicting an epidemic of cirrhosis and a need for liver transplants.

Fat people. Type II Diabetes. Metabolic Syndrome. High Glycemic carbs (including table sugar). Basically, things associated with the obesity epidemic that has occurred over the last two decades. The problem is too big to assign to a single bogeyman. People need to eat less (especially bad fats and high GI carbs, including HFCS and sugar) and exercise more.

29 posted on 10/02/2009 2:50:35 AM PDT by Paradox (ObamaCare = Logan's Run ; There is no Sanctuary!)
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To: elkfersupper
Where were you on the smoking bans?

I was all for 'em.

30 posted on 10/02/2009 4:04:10 AM PDT by raybbr (It's going to get a lot worse now that the anchor babies are voting!)
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To: sonofstrangelove
I am also breaking the diet Coke habit my girfriend has.

One of the other issues with colas is the phosphoric acid. It leaches calcium out of the bones. It's also not good for kidney stones.

I still have trouble NOT drinking Diet Pepsi.

31 posted on 10/02/2009 4:07:15 AM PDT by raybbr (It's going to get a lot worse now that the anchor babies are voting!)
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To: neverdem
Thanks for this information. We are trying cut down as much as possible HFCS in our childrens' diets. It's not easy.

BTW, there are lot of people on FR who choose to remain self-destructive regardless of the science put before them. I applaud your efforts to educate.

32 posted on 10/02/2009 4:09:32 AM PDT by raybbr (It's going to get a lot worse now that the anchor babies are voting!)
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To: neverdem

“Nothing else is as suspect for non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.”

What does that have to do with taxes? I reject the notion that high-fructose corn syrup is marginally worse than other foods that automatically justifies adding a sin tax to it. That doesn’t follow, unless you’re looking for an excuse to tax things.


33 posted on 10/02/2009 3:51:17 PM PDT by Tublecane
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To: raybbr

Well, she is finding the joys of tea drinking.


34 posted on 10/02/2009 5:36:44 PM PDT by ErnstStavroBlofeld ("We will either find a way, or make one."Hannibal/Carthaginian Military Commander)
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To: raybbr
I was all for 'em.

Well then, STFU when something you enjoy comes under attack.

35 posted on 10/02/2009 6:55:59 PM PDT by elkfersupper (Member of the Original Defiant Class)
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To: elkfersupper; raybbr

FOR the smoking bans?

Unbelievable how much like the jackbooted thugs of the left some Freepers are.


36 posted on 10/02/2009 7:30:17 PM PDT by Balding_Eagle (If America falls, darkness will cover the face of the earth for a thousand years.)
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To: neverdem
Bring back the misery index and see how deep the RATs run for cover.

No wait, they don't give a damn. Nevermind.

37 posted on 10/02/2009 7:32:38 PM PDT by MaxMax (Obama can't play in the Olympic reindeer games)
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To: MaxMax
Oh P.S.,
the world is laughing at us.
38 posted on 10/02/2009 7:34:35 PM PDT by MaxMax (Obama can't play in the Olympic reindeer games)
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To: Balding_Eagle
Unbelievable how much like the jackbooted thugs of the left some Freepers are.

Always shocking to me also, but I am never surprised.

39 posted on 10/02/2009 7:39:38 PM PDT by elkfersupper (Member of the Original Defiant Class)
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To: neverdem

Sucrose, commonly called table sugar, is a disaccharide of glucose and fructose with the molecular formula C12H22O11.


40 posted on 10/02/2009 7:46:55 PM PDT by facedown (Armed in the Heartland)
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